


Take a Chant on Me

by Viscariafields



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Mamma Mia! (Movies), Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Crack, Crossover, F/M, Fluff, Full on parody ABBA songs, Minor Kaidan Alenko/Shepard, References to ABBA, just a zany story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2020-10-19 14:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20658581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viscariafields/pseuds/Viscariafields
Summary: Sophie Hawke looked at the letters in her hand. Three letters to three strangers scattered across Thedas. Three letters to change her future.Prince Sebastian VaelStarkhavenWarden AndersAmaranthineFenrisQarinusShe handed them to the courier with a smile and set herself to waiting. In a few months, her whole life would change.~~Twenty years ago, Donna Hawke fled Kirkwall alone and pregnant. Now, twenty years later, on the eve of her daughters wedding, the three men who could be the father have all arrived for the festivities. It's Mamma Mia, y'all!





	1. Honey, Honey

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to one of the silliest things I've ever had the privilege of writing. Special thanks to WardsareFunctioning for all of her encouragement, brainstorming, and for coming up with the title! 
> 
> To make this work, I had to tweak the romances in DA2. Look, it's Mamma Mia. Hawke had one hell of a summer. Now we get to have one hell of a wedding.
> 
> I've bumped this up to a T rating because of some Fbombs.

Sophie Hawke looked at the letters in her hand. Three letters to three strangers scattered across Thedas. Three letters to change her future. 

_Prince Sebastian Vael _

_ Starkhaven _

_ Warden Anders _

_ Amaranthine _

_Fenris _

_ Qarinus _

She handed them to the courier with a smile and set herself to waiting. In a few months, her whole life would change. 

~~

Sophie waited by the dock next to her family’s seaside inn as her friends disembarked their ferry. Tomorrow she was going to be wed to the handsome Fereldan who happened to book a room for one night almost a year ago. Of course, instead of using his room, they spent the whole night talking, so he booked another night, then another, and another… 

In two days they would leave her little Antivan island to explore Thedas. But first, they would be married in the tiny chantry in front of her mother, her friends, the Maker, and, hopefully, someone she’d dreamed about her entire life but hadn’t met yet.

Her friends ran down the pier with shrieks of laughter and hugs, and Sophie found herself lifted into the air as Liara spun her around. 

“Put me down! Put me down! I have to tell you something.” She checked the beach for spying ears, or even worse, her mother, and beckoned her friends closer. “I have a secret and it can't wait. I invited my dad to the wedding.” 

Sophie had waited for this moment all day, and her friends did not disappoint as their jaws dropped. She relished it. "You finally found him?" Tali asked breathlessly.

"No! Well, not exactly. You know how my mom always said it was a ‘turbulent time’, and she had already fled Kirkwall alone by the time she realized she was expecting me. And I'd always kind of accepted that that's all I would ever know." Sophie bit her lip. Growing up without a dad had been fine. It really had. The inn was her whole world, and it was vibrant and full of interesting people from different places who told her stories, and then she met Kaidan, who promised to take her to all those faraway places she'd dreamed of. But there had always been that mystery. Had her mother loved him? Would he have loved Sophie if he knew her? Was he out there somewhere in the world? Finally, finally she was on the verge of getting her answers. "Well, I was going through the attic the other day, and I found my mom's diary next to a copy of a manuscript of some book written by Uncle Varric. It was about my mom when she lived in Kirkwall." 

Sophie held the books up for them to see. Liara plucked the manuscript out of her hands and flipped it open as Sophie turned to a dog-eared page. 

"Wait,” she said, before Sophie could start reading, “I’ve read this before. Is Donna the Champion of Kirkwall?" 

Sophie raised an eyebrow and began to read aloud from the diary with a dramatic clearing of her throat. "Ahem. ’What a disaster. Fenris showed up at the estate late last night. He came to apologize about what happened with Danarius, and we argued, and then suddenly we were kissing in my foyer. Maker, he's always so good at it. But this time, it didn't stop at kissing. It made me dizzy, it all happened so fast. One thing led to another and…’" 

Sophie closed the book and gave her friends a meaningful look. 

"Dot dot dot?" Tali asked. 

"It's old-timey way of saying, you know!" Sophie waggled her eyebrows suggestively. 

"Maker's breath." Liara dropped her head into her hands, “So this Fenris is your father?”

Sophie held up a finger and continued reading, "’It was everything I’d been hoping for all this time. Seven years of longing finally made real in one desperate fit of passion. But then-- he didn't even stay the whole night. Told me it was a mistake and left. When I went to find him at his mansion, he had cleared out. I think he’s gone for good.’" 

The girls looked at each other, brows furrowed in sympathy. "Your poor mother." 

Sophie waggled her eyebrows again. "The plot thickens." She turned a couple pages later in the diary. "'Anders came by tonight. I was still so heartbroken over Fenris, but then Anders has always been there for me. He makes me feel special. Important. He was so passionate about what I could be for the city, for mages, and I just didn't want to let another person down. I don't really know how it started, but suddenly we were in my bedroom and, well…’”

Tali gasped at another scandalous use of an ellipsis, but Liara had her brow furrowed. “Anders the mage who blew up the Kirkwall Chantry?” she asked. “Can an abomination even have children?” 

Sophie had already flipped to the next page. “’Sebastian turned up out of the blue tonight,’” she broke in, practically shouting now, “'so I said I'd let him stay for tea. He was trying to convince me to become viscount again, as if the city would ever accept a mage. As it turns out, his persuasive tongue was better put to other uses…’" 

Liara was skimming through the manuscript again. "Wait, she couldn’t possibly mean Sebastian Vael, Prince of Starkhaven--" 

“‘Afterward, he told me if I became viscount and he went back to Starkhaven, we could marry. Marry! Maker, the man is deluded. I should have left him in the Chantry where I found him. Although, if he learned how to do _ that _as a chantry brother, maybe I’ve had this whole religion thing wrong my entire life.’” 

“You could be a princess of Starkhaven?”

The girls burst into laughter as Sophie snapped the book shut. 

“Let me get this straight-- your father could be the abomination who started the Mage-Templar War--”

“A rebel elven slave--”

“Or the Prince of Starkhaven?” 

“Shhh!” Sophie hushed her friends, quickly thrusting the diary behind her back as her mother approached down the beach. Wearing simple work clothes for the repairs she was constantly applying to the inn, Donna Hawke was still a striking woman. Tall, with dark hair that Sophie inherited, and dark eyes that she didn’t, Sophie often thought she was the most beautiful woman in Thedas. 

"You all sound like you're having fun,” Hawke called down the beach, “I used to have fun." 

"Oh, we know," Tali said as Liara elbowed her in the side. 

Hawke planted a kiss on Sophie’s forehead while Tali slipped the book from her hands still behind her back. “Are you going to wait with me for Merrill and Varric?”

Sophie peeled away from her mother. “Sorry, can’t. Still so many wedding preparations to take care of. Have to get my bridesmaids set up!” 

“Make sure to--” Hawke called after them as they raced down the beach. However her mother was going to finish that sentence, Sophie didn’t hear. The girls didn’t stop running until they reached Sophie’s room, breathless. 

"So who is your dad? Fenris, Anders, or Sebastian?" 

"I don't know!" 

"But which one did you invite?" 

Sophie just grinned while her friends’ eyes widened.

"Maker's breath." 

"Do they know?" 

"What, do you think I wrote to a total stranger, 'please come to my wedding, you might be my father'? No! They think my mom sent the invites, and based on what's in her diary, I'm not surprised they said yes." 

“So they are all on their way right now?” 

“Yes!”

“And your mother is out there on the beach waiting for a ferry to come in?”

Sophie’s face fell. “Flames.”

“And which one-- I mean, what are you going to tell them?”

"I will know my father as soon as I see him," she asserted. Tali and Liara didn’t look so convinced. 

"Hawke is absolutely going to kill you when she finds out." 

"By the time she finds out, it will be too late.” How were her friends not understanding this? This was the most exciting day of her life-- the day she was finally going to meet her _ father_. “I feel like there's a part of me missing, and when I meet my dad, everything will fall into place." 

Tali and Liara just looked at each other. She could tell they weren't convinced. 

“Well, I guess we better stay vigilant then,” Liara said, “We wouldn’t want your mom to kill your dad before you had a chance to meet him.” 

Sophie went pale. “We need to watch for more ships.”

~~

Varric hadn't gotten to Antiva as often as he would like in the past few years. There was always something else wrong in Kirkwall, something that needed his attention. He barely had time to write anymore. Still, it wasn’t every day his best friend’s daughter got married. It almost made it worth it having to take a ferry to a tiny island. 

"Daisy! I didn't know you'd be here!" 

Merrill was standing by the bow, letting the wind hit her face. "Well I can't say I know much about shemlin weddings, but I do know that Hawke can throw a party. Besides, Sophie is just the cutest." 

“That she is. So, you still helping rebuild clan Lavellan? Or has clan number three sent you packing?” 

If the comment bothered her, Merrill didn't show it. “I taught their First as much as I could about some of the ancient magics I’ve picked up, and some other things I thought might come in handy, and then it was suggested that I find new places to spread my knowledge.” 

He eyed the slim elf. All those years in Kirkwall studying blood magic followed by the elven insurrection led by the Dread Wolf and the rediscovery and destruction of whatever ancient elvhen artifacts remained, and Merrill was the most proficient mage in Thedas when it came to all things forbidden, wrapped in a tiny, unassuming package. Everyone wanted a taste, and everyone got a little bit scared. Turns out the Dalish clans weren’t always exactly ready for the knowledge of a true elvhen expert.

“How about you, Varric? I don’t see your crossbow. Settle down with anything a little softer recently?” 

“Bianca is packed with the rest of my things. Why, you offering?” 

“You just watch yourself, Master Tethras. I'm still free, and one of these days I might be offering. And won’t that be awkward.” 

Across the bay, he was almost certain the other boat headed their direction was Isabela’s based on the size of the captain’s hat. _ Admiral, _ he corrected himself. But stranger than that, he thought he caught sight of a shock of white hair on the head of someone he hadn't seen in this part of the world in twenty years. It disappeared into the hold. 

"Couldn't be," he muttered to himself. Hawke would kill him. And Varric had never given up the location of her island. His eyes must be playing tricks on him. 

On shore, Hawke waited for the ferry and greeted them with hugs that almost knocked them back into the water. 

"Was that Isabela’s boat I saw on the water?" he asked as soon as he could breathe again. 

"Yes! She was in charge of bringing the rum for the party. I expect she'll be here sooner or later. It’s like a big old reunion!” Varric considered what he thought he saw on her boat, and his smile turned stale as he wondered just how big of a reunion this was going to be. “Come on! You have to see what I've done with the place since you were here last." 

It had only been, Maker, was it five years? Even so, coin must have been flowing in. Hawke had expanded the place, added new little houses in bright colors along the beach. Vendors sold shaved ice and fruit drinks in the front, and out back Hawke showed them a large tiled courtyard with bright mosaics under their feet. “I just finished expanding it this year. Didn’t realize my own daughter’s wedding would be the first party I throw out here. Can you believe it? Getting married to a Fereldan?”

“I thought you’d be happy about the second part,” Varric said dryly as Hawke bid them all to sit down. 

“Oh, it’s better than some of the alternatives, but they plan on traveling. Traveling! Remember when we used to do that?” 

Merrill laughed. “The Wounded Coast hardly counted. I traveled a lot more before I met you, Hawke, and a lot more after.” 

“It’s my fault,” Hawke continued, “I kept her cooped up on this island, so afraid the templars would find us, send us to different Circles or worse. And now the mages are free, and she can go wherever she wants and she wants to go everywhere. With a boy.” 

Varric reflected that that sounded like someone he met years ago in Kirkwall. “What about you, Hawke? Anywhere you’d like to go now with your new freedom?”

“No,” she said, putting her feet up, “I just got this place how I like it, and I’m glad that part of my life is over. These days my life is nothing special. In fact, it's a bit of a bore. Adventuring, stirring up trouble, wooing mysterious men with nefarious pasts and even worse futures… I’m done with all of that.” 

Merrill raised an eyebrow at Varric before turning back to their delusional friend. “Surely it would be nice to at least have some companionship here, now that Sophie is leaving.”

“How about you, Merrill? Instead of finding yet another clan to educate, why not stay here with me? Enjoy the sun and the sand and all that rum Isabela brings by every few months?”

“Tempting, but I did recently get a request from Ralerfin clan to go teach their First on some lost magics, so I’m afraid I’ll have to move on after the wedding.” 

Varric shook his head. “Clan number four. Wonders never cease.”

“I tend to think of them as temporary families. Which brings it to five, because of what we had in Kirkwall.” 

“Aw, that makes me feel all fuzzy inside. Cheers to that, Daisy.” 

~~ 

The dock workers were late to load up the cargo onto Isabela’s boat, but that wasn’t what was concerning her as she stared out across the harbor. What concerned her was the white-haired elf staring forlornly at a departing ferry. She knew that boat. It had the same destination as her own. She knew that man, and he shouldn’t be going there. Things were about to get interesting. 

“Don’t you just look as delicious as ever?” she asked as she strode up to him on the pier. Twenty years had not diminished that fine face of his. A little sharper in the cheek, a little grayer in the brow; he still smiled at her flirtations. 

“Isabela,” he greeted her, eyes sweeping over her. “Tell me your boat is headed to an island wedding.” 

“I can’t believe Hawke invited you,” she said with a shake of her head. She meant it. She didn’t believe it. “I’ll give you a ride on my skiff,” she said, licking her lips, “But you should be warned, I have a stowaway on board.” 

“I suppose I have no choice.” 

Isabela had to stop from pinching herself when they reached the end of the dock. This was too much. Prince Sebastian Vael, luggage in tow, looking like a chevalier fucked a chantry, and the chantry shat him right out just to ruin her day. She felt Fenris’s ample muscles tense beside her. “Don’t tell me your highness is looking for a boat to a scenic little island to ordain a wedding or somesuch?” 

“I’m an invited guest,” he said. Isabela very much doubted this. “Fenris, my old friend,” he said, “It is good to see you.” 

Fenris said nothing, his face turning stony. He grasped Sebastian’s outstretched hand without an ounce of warmth. Very interesting. 

“All right, all aboard Isabela’s ferrying service for washed up old men. Keep your hands to yourselves and your coin purses in view. I can promise _ you _safe passage among my crew, but not your valuables.” 

Isabela got to the work of captaining her vessel, which didn’t require much on a sunny, calm two-hour journey. Fenris had developed sea legs since she saw him last, which was intriguing. Sebastian had not, and kept trying to talk to him. The result was a strange little pattern of cat and mouse across the deck, which ended when her stowaway decided to take in some fresh air. 

She rolled her eyes at the predictability of men. One glance at their old friend, and Fenris was glowing in anger and Sebastian had produced knives from somewhere about his person. Anders, for his part, seemed stunned, but he was less prone to cracking around the edges these days from what Isabela could tell. She watched it play out, the curses, the accusations, the threats--_ boring-- _ but she inserted herself into the conflict before her ship could be damaged by an enormous sword or stray fireball. 

She had Sebastian disarmed before he even noticed her, and she kept a dagger pointed at Fenris.

“If anyone kills any of you on this boat, it’s going to be me.” She paused to take a swig from her flask, just to remind them how completely insignificant they were to her, dagger still up and ready, “I swear, you all are still such children. I can't imagine a single reason Donna would have invited any of you to this wedding." 

At Hawke's name, the men seemed to relax ever so slightly. Good. Remind them why they were here. And in the off chance Hawke truly did invite any of them to her home, killing her other guests would be tacky at best. Blades were sheathed. Hackles were lowered. Predictable. Twenty years later and invoking Hawke still got them behaving. 

Sebastian, unarmed yet unfortunately still possessing a tongue, growled, “You would really protect this mass murderer from justice?”

“Oh give it a rest, Brother Vael. He’s a fugitive. I’m a smuggler. It’s what I do. And he was invited to this party just as much as you were. If you don’t like it, you’re free to swim.” 

She waited for his response, hands on her hips. Sebastian merely huffed, finding a spot on the deck as far from Anders as he could manage.

“Good boy. I’m keeping these,” she called after him, waving his daggers in the air as she sauntered back to her position on deck. The emeralds on the hilt looked real. This day was looking up. 

~~

Three men stood before Sophie. One was tall, cropped hair streaked silver with striking blue eyes. The second was even taller, but thinner. His hair had clearly once been blond, but it had all turned to gray now and he wore it tied back. He looked at her with soulful gold eyes, and Sophie could feel his magic tingling on her skin. The third was shorter, an elf, with bright white hair and green eyes that regarded her impassively. She had never seen a stranger group at the inn. 

“May I help you?” she asked. 

“Yes. We’re here for the wedding,” the mage said. Her eyes widened. “I’m Anders.”

Sophie's heart stopped. 

"I am Fenris." 

"And I am Sebastian Vael, Prince of Starkhaven." 

One of these men was her father. For some reason they had arrived together. Her mouth had fallen open. She closed it, a grin spreading across her face.

"You are expecting us?" Sebastian asked.

"Maker’s breath, yes! All of you are… expected." Sophie wasn’t sure she had ever told a more blatant lie than that one, and it was exhilarating. Having them in front of her, they were not at all what she had expected. A prince in chantry garb, a Warden in frayed robes holding a cat carrier, and… whatever Fenris was, in high-quality armor and tattoos her mother’s journal could not have prepared her for. Three wildly different men, all staring intently at her, and she had no idea which one could be her father. She covered her mouth to stop from cackling madly. 

“Sophie!” called a woman, and she found herself in the cozy embrace of Isabela. “I see you found the flotsam I picked up. Can you believe your mother was ever friends with such ruffians?” 

“Your mother? Are you Hawke's daughter?" asked Anders, his lined face breaking into a deep smile. 

"I thought you looked familiar," Sebastian said, “I don’t know how I didn’t see it immediately.” 

“Little Hawke, your mother’s _ invited guests _ need rooms to freshen up in, I think,” Isabela said with a raised eyebrow. 

"Of course!" Sophie said, realizing she had not prepared a room for her three potential fathers, and more importantly could not under any circumstances allow her mother to catch even a glimpse of them. "Follow me!" 

She didn't even know where she was going. Her feet just took her away from the main house and she found herself in front of the stables. She directed them to the abandoned one that still had at least one cot in it that they left for the occasional travelers with no money to spare. Her fathers filed in, taking in the dilapidated structure. 

Isabela was grinning. “Sophie, are you telling me that your mother decided to break her silence after twenty years with these three men only to house them in a broken-down goat shack?” 

Sophie gauged the expressions on her fathers’ faces. Confused, annoyed, concerned. 

"Well, no. She didn’t.” 

“So... we’re not to stay in this barn?” Sebastian asked. Isabela shook her head. 

“No," she said slowly, "What I mean is... I sent the invites. My mom doesn't know anything about you coming here." 

Sophie couldn’t help but smile manically while judging their reactions. Anders let out an audible groan, his eyes searching for the nearest exit. Fenris managed to look even more dour, a resigned sigh escaping him. Sebastian began massaging his temples, eyes closed. 

"It's just, she's done so much for me and she's always talking about you, you know, the good old days in Kirkwall, all the fun you had, and I thought what an amazing surprise this would be for her. Varric and Merrill are coming today, and, well, Aveline couldn’t make it, but I thought it could be like a Kirkwall reunion!" 

"I can't be here." Fenris intoned. 

"The last time I saw your mother, she said she never wanted to see me again," Anders groaned. 

"And I said I would wage war on her personally." 

"That was all years ago! Water under the bridge. I’m sure she’s over it.” Isabela snorted, but Sophie continued, almost pleading, “Please, it would mean a lot to me." 

"Why?" Fenris asked. Sophie couldn’t think of a suitable lie to answer him. 

"Look, I think the best course of action would be to reconvene on Isabella's boat," Anders suggested.

Sebastian agreed, and all three men began grabbing their belongings. 

"Nope," said Isabela, "I'm here for the party. I'm staying. My boat isn’t some free service you three can ride back and forth and back and forth until you figure out where you want to be and why. Later." To Sophie she whispered, “Careful there, little Hawke. Try not to get burned while you’re having your fun.” Isabela left the stables with a wink at Sophie, and she had the gut-wrenching feeling that her aunt had figured out exactly why they were here. She swallowed, watching the woman walk away. One of her fiance’s friends ran up to Isabela. Whatever he said caused her to throw her head back and laugh before giving him a gentle shove that knocked him to the ground. Sophie turned back to her fathers. 

"When I sent those invites, I figured it was a long shot you'd even reply. But you all came! Surely there must be some special reason for you to be here? Some old urge for adventure that still pulses in your veins?" 

She tried her most winning smile on them, and she could see their willpower crumbling. The terrifying elf actually appeared to grin at her, shaking his head a little. Anders set his bag down first. "Maker, you are just like your mother." 

Sebastian succumbed last. "We were all helpless to her charms. Glad I didn't think to bring my sons. You'd have them both straying from the path in a matter of minutes." 

"You have sons?" Sophie asked eagerly. 

Before he could answer, Fenris whipped around with an alarmed look, and Sophie heard her mother humming outside the stables. 

“You can’t tell her I invited you,” she whispered fiercely to them. As the humming got closer, they were straightening up their posture, brushing themselves off. She needed to get their attention. She held out her hand. “Promise me, please. Make something up-- anything.” 

Fenris pried his eyes away from the door and gave her hand a squeeze. “I promise.”

“As do I,” said Anders. 

“I might regret this, but I promise, too,” said Sebastian. 

She smiled at all three of them, mouthing, _ thank you_, and then jumped out a window.


	2. Our Last Summer

Hawke was having a beautiful day with her two best friends on her beautiful island before her beautiful daughter got married in a beautiful ceremony. She was practically floating as she walked through her property in search of the good wine she’d hidden in the old cellars. 

A thud in the stables drew her attention, and Hawke peeked inside. Her quick glimpse nearly had her knees buckling beneath her. A feathered coat. Piercing blue eyes. Unnaturally white hair. The sudden ringing of chantry bells had her jumping away from the window, lest she be discovered, heart pounding in her chest. 

_ Anders. _

_ Sebastian. _

_ Fenris. _

Hawke leaned her back against the stable wall, trying to catch her breath. All three? How could it be all three? The man who rejected her, the man who declared war on her, and the man who blew up her city all in the course of one horrible summer leaving her pregnant and alone were now sitting in her crumbling _ goat shed _of all places. 

After their betrayals, after her flight from Kirkwall, she’d made up her mind that it had to come to an end. No more men with righteous causes. She cut ties with all of them, forbidding her friends from telling anyone where she went. Perhaps it had been too drastic, but she had been equal measures angry and sad, finding herself crying countless times over all three of them as she hid from the Exalted March and the Inquisition and whoever else thought they owned a piece of her time. That summer-- their parting-- had left her broken-hearted, and she had never truly recovered. 

And yet that part of her life had been so exciting. They had all been so beautiful, so sincere, so passionate in their own ways. When she was with them, it was like her very soul was on fire. She had loved them, in one way or another. She had needed them. And then they had each fucked her over spectacularly. 

As her heart thumped in her chest, the men who cheated her just a thin wooden wall away, she was tempted, oh she was tempted, to burst right through that door and confront them. And hug them. And shout at them and accept them straight back into her heart. What would Varric say if he could see her right now? _ Hawke, haven’t you learned your lesson already? _ Evidently not, because just one look at them and she almost forgot everything they had put her through. 

She couldn’t resist trying to get another peek at them through the broken wood of the stable. Andraste’s ass, she had no self-control. Not now and not then. 

No. She didn’t need to see them to know exactly what they looked like. They looked like snakes. She pressed her back back to the stable and got a hold of herself. Yes, she'd wondered which one it had been through the years, looking for signs of him in Sophie, but the girl looked just like Hawke. Acted like her, too, mostly. And she was _ proud _of that. She hadn't needed a husband or a lover-- she had built this life all by herself and they could stay in the stables and rot for all she cared. 

As the rotted wood cracked behind her and she rolled ass first into her own stable, she reflected that at times it felt like her life was falling apart around her. 

“Donna!”

She looked up at three terribly familiar faces and said, “Would someone please tell me that I’m in the Fade right now, and this is, in fact, some sort of nightmare? A demon of regret, perhaps?” 

“I could consecrate this stable,” Sebastian suggested, “Drive any foul spirits out. But I’d probably just upset a goat or two.” 

“Keep your blessings to yourself, your majesty,” Hawke grumbled, getting off the floor. Fenris offered a hand, but she ignored it. 

“Maker, you haven’t changed a bit,” Anders said. He hadn’t either. Still had his hair long, tied back with a ribbon. His face still a combination of hard edges and a deceptive softness that drew her in every time. No. She was stronger than this. 

“Why are you here? What are you doing here?” At all costs, she could not show them how much she had missed them. They couldn’t know they affected her at all. 

“I’m here on holiday,” Sebastian offered. 

“There was a… rumor of a darkspawn threat,” Anders said. 

“And I’m here to…” She almost shuddered as she heard Fenris speak for the first time in decades. He stared at her with those unchanged eyes, and she felt herself being forcefully shoved twenty years into the past, to the child she was with her heart broken and her city burning, and he said, “To say ‘hi.’” 

“Well you’ve said it now,” she stammered out, “So I guess that’s that and you can leave.” 

“Hawke--”

Maker’s breath, even the way he said her name hadn’t changed, and it still stopped her in her tracks. 

“What are you doing in my stables?” 

They all began speaking at once. 

“Well, a lady--”

“An old Antivan lady--”

“Yes, speaking Antivan, told us to stay here, probably.” 

“Or perhaps she said we couldn’t stay here?” Anders suggested.

She stared at them. How had she _ ever _coordinated these men in battle? “Well, my inn is full. No rooms. Booked solid. My-- a local girl is getting married, and it’s busy. And I can’t be worrying about you lot.” 

“Well I’m used to roughing it,” Anders assured her.

“As am I.”

Sebastian smiled, “And I’m spontaneous.” 

She nodded, backing away from them. “Great. Well, you said hi--” she gestured at Fenris “--and darkspawn can’t swim, so I think the island is good, Anders, and as there are no rooms here, I think your holiday will have to be spent elsewhere. I’m going to find Isabela and get her to take you away from here. And me.” 

Her back hit the door, and she propelled herself through it, taking off at a run the instant she heard the door shut behind her. 

She sprinted through her entire property, forgetting where she was even going. It wasn't right for them to be here. It wasn't right for them to spoil Sophie's big day like this. It wasn't right for them to all still be so beautiful and terrible and cut her to ribbons inside without even trying. Her three biggest mistakes, wrapped up in gorgeous packaging, come to shame her in the only place she had ever felt safe. 

Hawke practically collapsed when she found Varric and Merrill enjoying a drink on the patio. 

"Hawke? What's wrong? You break a feather or something?" 

She tried to speak, but only a croak came out. She took a shuddering breath. Varric held an arm out to steady her while Merrill placed a hand on her forehead. "Are you sick?" Hawke shook her head, reaching out for a cup, a mug, a beverage of any sort, and raised it to her lips. 

"Hey! Don't drink that! If you're sick, you'll give Merrill strep or something." 

“It’s fine, Varric. I don’t think she’s ill. Hawke, whatever happened, I’m sure we can patch it up together.” 

Hawke put down the drained cup and took a breath, but she couldn’t say it. It was too much to say out loud. She was dangerously close to crying, a small sniffle breaking through. 

“Come on, Hawke. I hate to see you like this. It’s a beautiful day, the sun is in the sky shining above us, and tomorrow you get to see me dance at your daughter’s wedding. Tell us what’s wrong.” 

She nodded at Varric, accepting the hanky that Merrill offered her. Maker knew Varric had been a shoulder she’d cried on enough while trying to get past the scars left by her heartaches. Merrill, too. She swallowed, steeling herself for what came next. 

"He's here." 

"Who is here?" 

“I’m here!” Isabela said, thumping a bottle down on their table. “And I’ve brought the rum.” 

Varric folded his arms across his chest. “What else did you bring?”

"Her father,” Hawke sputtered, “Sophie's father is here."

"Not Fenris?" Merrill asked, "Here on the island?" 

Hawke swallowed again as Isabela thrust a full glass into her hand. "I… I never told you… but… it wasn't just Fenris that summer. After he left I… Maker's Breath and they're all here." 

"Who is all here?" 

"Fenris. And Anders. And Sebastian." 

Isabela whistled. "Well done, love." 

"Are you saying… all three? In one summer?" Merrill asked, "And you don't know which one it is? I never did think she looked much like Fenris, come to think of it."

"Don't… don't say that,” Hawke groaned, “Don't start trying to figure it out. I can’t…” She took a deep swallow of rum. "They all just had those eyes and those shoulders and the way they talked it was… And that was a very stressful summer for me. I just wanted someone to chase the shadows away. Meredith was breathing down my neck. And I thought, if they were going to make me tranquil, might as well enjoy it while I could."

“Maker’s breath, Hawke,” Varric laughed, “I almost feel left out. I mean of all people… Sebastian? I also have shoulders and eyes.” 

“Honestly, Varric, the way I was going that summer, had you asked, I probably would have said yes. Anything to avoid spending an evening on my own, just getting through the darkness to the break of day.” 

“Isn’t that a romantic thought. Still, you never spoke to any of them again and you didn’t even let them know that Sophie existed, so I think I got the best of it." 

“I spent seven years in Kirkwall as chaste as Elthina,” Hawke moaned, “And one summer I was _ weak _ and _ vulnerable _ and I _ refuse _ to regret it because I got Sophie and she’s the best part of my world.”

There were murmurs of agreement. “Quite right, love,” Isabela said, raising her glass. They settled into their thoughts when Varric put his glass down on the table with a thump. 

“Wait, so you’re saying that Anders, Fenris, _ and _ Sebastian are all in your old goat house right now? Together?”

“That’s where I left them.”

Merrill was already on her feet. “Well let’s just go put out the fire or whatever it is they’ve probably started, clean up any... corpses.” 

Hawke chased after her friends as they went to the stables, but Isabela walked slowly, taking in the view. “Hawke, and not that I’m complaining, but why am I seeing so many young men at your inn?”

“Hmm?” Hawke looked around at the strapping youths as if noticing them for the first time. Most of them had their eyes on Isabela, and Hawke would have sworn one of them was actually flexing. As Hawke talked, another boldly handed Isabela a flower to the whoops of his friends. “Those are Kaidan’s friends. Sophie’s fiance. Almost all of them are in the Fereldan Navy.” 

Isabela blanched and tossed the flower to the ground. “You invited me to a party attended mainly by the burly young men of Alistair’s Navy?” 

Hawke laughed weakly. “I thought you could have some fun.”

“I love you!” one man yelled at her. 

Isabela winked at him. “Slow down, boy. You’re only a child.” To Hawke she muttered, “Not all of these belong to Alistair. Curious.”

They didn’t find a fire in the stables, but they also didn’t find any men. Hawke was starting to wonder if she’d hallucinated the whole thing, except there was a trunk with the Starkhaven crest emblazoned on it, not to mention two unfamiliar cats in blue collars with griffon charms lazing in the hay. 

"Great. They are loose. Just. Loose on my island." Hawke ran her hands through her hair. She pulled out a bit of straw, and examined it, wondering if it had been there the entire time she was talking to Sophie’s fathers. "The most important thing is that Sophie never finds out." 

"Well maybe she would be cool with it," Merrill said. Everyone looked at her. “What?”

Varric put a tentative hand on Hawke’s shoulder. "Donna, relax, they left." 

"You don't know that. I don't know that. I don't know where they are. They could be anywhere. They spent their entire adult lives hiding from slavers and guardsmen and templars and assassins. They were very good at it. They could be anywhere. And I brought this on myself because I was a stupid, reckless little slut." 

"Well,” Isabela huffed, “I think it's time we got this woman another drink.”

“I think it’s time we dumped her ass straight in the ocean,” Varric said. 

“What?”

“Nevermind, I’m with Varric. Into the ocean she goes.”

Hawke’s legs were swept out from under her as she was lifted into the air by the two of them. “Now this is for your own good, Hawke,” Merrill lectured her, “Just until you find it in you to try again, like you did before, maybe sing a new song and stop whining about some old men that don’t matter.” 

Her cries of “Put me down!” were ignored until they reached the dock, where they tossed her straight into the shining blue waters. As soon as she breached the surface, she thrust out with force magic, propelling her friends off the other side. They landed with splashes and screams, and Hawke laughed until she forgot about men with eyes and shoulders and voices for a while. 

~~

Sophie saw her three fathers walking down the dusty path toward the small island village and the wharf. They were searching for another boat to leave the island, she knew it. 

“Wait!” she called after them, running, “Come back!” 

All three turned to look at her. “We’re off to find some food,” Anders said, “It doesn’t seem like your mother would be too pleased with us eating at her inn. There’s a town back that way.” 

Sophie panted, trying to catch her breath. “She’s just… you know she’s just overwhelmed with all this wedding prep. So many people. Don’t go,” she pleaded, “Stay. Um, wait like three minutes and I’ll pack us all a picnic. I can show you the island.” 

Miraculously, they agreed. She took them on the long path around to her favorite look-out point, where they’d be less likely to run into any people. She kept stumbling on the rocky path as she craned her neck around to try to take them in. Her first impressions had been basically useless. Sophie was short, so maybe Fenris was her dad. But she had blue eyes, so maybe it was Sebastian. Then again, sometimes people said they looked green. She was a mage, so it could be Anders. She felt more comfortable with Anders than Sebastian, who stood so straight and seemed so sure of himself, or Fenris, with his intimidating tattoos and hair and the appearance that he was always looking for threats around them. Maybe that was a sign. A natural rapport with the man could mean something. 

As they walked, she was getting the feeling that they weren’t exactly the best of friends. It was too quiet. She needed to get them talking. “Tell me something about my mother, when she was young.” 

"Your mother,” Sebastian sighed, “We all loved her. The entire city of Kirkwall loved her."

Anders huffed. "Until they didn't." 

"And whose fault was that, I wonder?" Fenris jibed. 

They reached the overlook. Far below, waves crashed into the rocky cliff. The ocean extended as far as the eye could see, and the light of the early afternoon, it glittered. Sophie unpacked their picnic. "Tell me something about my mother I wouldn't know from Varric's book." 

"She was shamelessly bold,” Anders said, “She once set a templar's britches on fire at the Gallows… and nobody ever figured out how it happened. Suddenly there was just smoke rising out of his armor." 

"She was generous,” Fenris said, “There was a girl she saved from the Gallows-- she sent her family money every year. Wouldn't be surprised if she still does."

“You mean Ella?” The woman had told Sophie the story of her mother saving her first from templars and then from an abomination. “They came and stayed with us for an entire year. Only left when the Circles were abolished. She lives on an orchard now and sends us bushels of apples every year.” Fenris smiled, and Sophie reflected that resting with his legs stretched out and holding a hunk of cheese in one hand, he wasn’t nearly so scary. 

"I used to hear her singing in her estate when I walked past at night,” Sebastian mused, “It's how I knew she was home. When it was quiet, I would rush off to pray." 

Fenris chuckled. "I recall those days like they were yesterday. Hawke dragging us through the rain and laughing the entire time." 

"And the singing. Every spider found our location because ‘Oh Anders, the acoustics are just so good here!’" 

Sebastian shook his head. "She couldn't have attracted more attention to herself if she tried."

"She was trying,” Anders addressed Sophie, “She used to stand on the tables in the Hanged Man. Maker, she would walk right across people's dinners." 

Fenris nodded, leaning his head back and looking toward the sky. "And Merrill always joined her. She and Varric right behind her."

"There was that night,” Sebastian said, “When someone slapped Merrill’s, uh, well her, ah... _ behind _ while she danced. Remember that templar--" 

“No, a guardsman,” Anders corrected him, “She turned to him and asked---” Anders held up one finger in an impression of Sophie’s drunken mother-- “'Are you a templar? You have to tell me if you are.' And the poor sod shook his head and she turned around and punched that guy right in the nose." 

"Kneed him in the groin, too," Fenris added. 

"She didn't even use magic to bring him down." 

They all chuckled at that. It was so strange to imagine-- her mother who was so afraid of the Circle that she fled to this island, taunting templars and starting bar fights. 

Sebastian sighed. “That was the night she wrote that song for me--”

“She wrote it for me,” Fenris grumbled.

“Are you two serious? Do you not remember the part when she yelled ‘mages only’ and made me start playing my guitar?” 

Anders began describing the scene so well, Sophie was certain she could see the whole thing in her mind--Fenris warning Hawke that she had drawn too much attention to herself while fighting off the poison attacks in Lowtown, Sebastian wondering if the Circle wasn’t a better place for her with magic that powerful. The whole table erupted in argument, which mage deserved the Circle more, over whose dead body would Hawke get taken away by templars, exactly where Sebastian could shove his faith and the Maker. 

Her mother, unable or unwilling to take anything seriously, made up a song on the spot, getting on her knees on the table and taking up a position of prayer before singing: 

_ Exemplar templar knights are going to find me _

_ Brand me with the sun _

_ Take away my fun _

_ And so the Maker’s work is done _

She could just see it-- her mother pretending to be pious and repentant while Sebastian rolled his eyes, winking at him when she sang about the Maker. And Fenris and Anders both uncomfortable, one with the attention she drew and the other with how flippantly talked about being made tranquil, and both eventually laughing despite themselves as she pretended to get hit by a templar smite. 

_ Tonight Exemplar templar smites are going to bind me _

_ But I won’t feel blue _

_ Like I always do _

_ ‘Cause somewhere in Kirkwall there’s you. _

She pointed-- and here there was some discrepancy over exactly which man she pointed at-- and then tossed her guitar to Anders. 

_ I was sick and tired of templar threats _

_ When I saw you last night in Lowtown _

_ All I do is cast and fight and sweat _

_ Wishing every thief was the last one _

_ So imagine I was glad to hear you're coming _

_ Suddenly it feels alright _

_ And it's gonna be so different _

_ When I'm on the streets tonight _

If the way Anders told the story was true, Hawke came up with this song on the spot, Merrill was able to follow along and sing her lines, Varric jumped on the tavern’s piano and banged out the melody, and Anders did his best with the chord progression. Sophie was certain it had come together in pieces, over time, jokes and lyrics blending into one absurd song, but Anders painted her a picture of her mother spontaneously dancing and singing on the tables of the Hanged Man, walking across people’s dinners while shouting, “Somebody get this elf a tambourine!”

_ Facing twenty thousand tal vashoth _

_ How can anyone be so busy? _

_ Casting ‘til my fingers fall clear off _

_ Still I'm praying those spears all miss me _

_ There are moments when I think I'm going crazy _

_ But it's gonna be alright _

_ And it's gonna be so different _

_ When I'm on the streets tonight _

_ Tonight exemplar templar smites are going to bind me _

_ Brand me with the sun _

_ Take away my fun _

_ And so the Maker’s work is done _

_ Exemplar templar knights are going to find me _

_ But I won’t feel blue _

_ Like I always do _

_ ‘Cause somewhere in Kirkwall there’s you. _

According to Anders, and Fenris and Sebastian seemed to agree with him on this, by the end of it, the entire bar was shouting the last line with her, fingers in the air all pointing at Hawke. 

“She was the Champion of Lowtown before she was the Champion of Kirkwall,” said Sebastian. 

“She was definitely the Champion of the Hanged Man,” Anders agreed. 

Fenris shook his head. “Ended about the same, with Caron throwing her out for breaking a table in half.” 

They all seemed more relaxed now, but Sophie had read the end of Varric’s book. Even with nights like that, even with how much they claimed to love her, Fenris left her, Anders betrayed her, and Sebastian renounced her. It was hard not to wonder if it might have been different if they had known about Sophie. But what if it had gone just the same? 

“And now you’re a prince?” she asked Sebastian. 

“Aye, until my sons are ready to take over. Then I think I should like to reenter the Chantry, take vows again.” 

She turned to Anders. “And you’re a Warden again?” 

He grinned. “Turns out they’ll take anyone.”

“And what about you, Fenris?” 

“I have been in the service of many people since I left Kirkwall.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “What he means is that he's been a spy for the radical elements in Tevinter.” 

Fenris let out a low laugh. “Not for a long time now. I openly serve as an adviser and occasional body-guard to Magister Maeveris Tilani in her crusade to abolish slavery and reform the magesterium.” 

“They call him the ‘Black Wolf of Tevinter,’” Anders said to her with a wink. 

“I hate that name,” Fenris groaned. 

“Why black?” Sophie asked, “Your hair and tattoos are white. And don't you, um, you know… glow?" 

Fenris looked actually pained to answer this, but he did. “The Dread Wolf was said to be a white wolf, and the Divine in Tevinter is called the Black Divine.” Sophie stared at him blankly. “It was a stupid name given to me by a stupid man.” 

"There are men who would kill to be called a pet name by Dorian Pavus," Anders drawled.

“At least it’s better than ‘choir boy,’” Sebastian muttered. 

A voice echoed up to their spot, and Sophie jumped to her feet when she realized it was Kaidan. “Flames, what time is it?” 

Her fiance ran up the path, concern etched on his face as he took her in. “Where have you been all day? It’s almost time for the dinner and nobody has seen you. My parents arrived. Your mother sent me to get you ready. Who are--” his eyes took in her fathers “--these people?”

“They’re nobody,” she said. 

“I am Fenris.”

“I am… a Warden passing through.”

“And I am Sebastian Vael, Prince of Starkhaven. On holiday.” 

Kaidan looked completely perplexed. “Both the Viscount of Kirkwall and the Prince of Starkhaven are here?”

Sophie began to lead Kaidan away with a quick apologetic wave to her fathers. “I know! A weird coincidence, right?”

“I could have sworn I saw Admiral Isabela walking around earlier, too.” 

“Aunt Izzy! You should have said hi!” 

“_ That’s _your Aunt Izzy? Maker’s breath, Sophie, she’s the most feared pirate in Thedas! We were under strict orders to never engage with her. No wonder Jacob thought he saw Nevarran spies walking around the beach. They must work for her.”

Maker’s breath, but she loved the way he crinkled his brow while he solved a puzzle. She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward her, biting her lip. He resisted for only a moment, then gladly let himself be dragged to her, placing his hands on her hips. “Don’t waste your time thinking about my Aunt Izzy,” she said, gazing into his deep brown eyes, “Waste it thinking about me.”

“Sophie you are all I think about.”

“And you’ll never leave me, right?”

“Are you serious? I think about losing you and I can’t stand it.” He turned even more serious and thoughtful, drawing her close. “If something were to happen to you, Thedas would keep going. The sun would rise, the moons would set, Tevinter and Par Vollen would war, every old Orlesian fashion would become new, even the Blight would come again. But Sophie you and I-- what we have-- it’s the most important thing in the world, and it will never come around again. I love you so much.” 

“Shut up and kiss me, Kaidan.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not at all sorry for just how many song lyrics I jammed into this chapter. 
> 
> This fic is apparently going to be 5 chapters (she says, crossing her fingers it won't actually be 6).
> 
> Also, that terrible Meryl Streep (Merrill strep) joke is courtesy of Wardsarefunctioning. You can thank or blame her as needed.


	3. Dancing Queen

Sophie’s eyes kept darting around the hall. Tomorrow they would have their wedding feast outside under the stars, but for tonight’s affair, they were in the main common room of the inn. Hawke had decorated it with flowers adorning every surface, and Sophie couldn’t help but feel that her fathers were hiding behind them somewhere. After all, they were invited to the wedding, and she hadn’t _ not _invited them tonight… Her thoughts were interrupted by her mother standing up on a platform she’d set up earlier that day and stomping her feet for attention while holding up a cup. 

“I know you didn’t come all this way to hear me talk, and I’ll leave all the joke-telling to Varric. I just want to say that I am so grateful and proud to have a daughter like Sophie. However, as I like to remind her, Sophie could sing before she could talk, and she could dance before she could walk, so instead of some grand speech about what a wonderful daughter she’s been and how I’ll miss every single day--” Hawke paused for a moment and swallowed. Sophie had never seen her mother so dangerously close to tears, and the sight made her own eyes well up “--I thought I’d give her one last performance before some hunky Fereldan scoops her up and takes her away forever.” Hawke waited for the polite chuckles to die down while Merrill hopped up onto their makeshift stage. With some coaxing, Isabela was persuaded to join them as well. “Sophie, this song was written by your uncle Varric about you when you were very small. We updated it a little.” 

Varric struck a quick run down the piano keys, and they were off. 

_ You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life _

_ Ooh, see that girl, watch that scene, dig in the dancing queen! _

As Sophie watched her mother perform, it was like her fathers’ stories come to life. When had she even had time to teach Merrill the moves? Had Isabela always been able to harmonize like that? She’d seen her mother sing before, obviously, but never like this. Never a true performance on stage and just for her. It was like she’d cast a spell of pure joy over the room. Sophie held her hand in a closed fist over her heart, tears welling in her eyes even as she laughed to the ridiculous dance moves. Was she really going to leave her mother in two days? And for some _ boy _? 

A tug at her arm from Liara drew her attention reluctantly away from the stage. Her fathers were standing at the back of the room, all watching Hawke with dazzled expressions on their faces. And Sophie got it now, she really did, but she couldn’t spoil her mother’s night like this. She needed to keep them distracted, away from Donna. But her mother was still singing, and Sophie didn’t want to miss another second. As soon as Varric’s piano faded away and Isabela set down her tambourine, Sophie leapt onto the stage and into her mother’s arms. 

Hawke held Sophie’s face in her hands, staring at her for a long moment before whispering, “I love you,” and kissing her on the forehead. The entire room went up in wild applause for mother and daughter. Hawke stood behind Sophie, wrapping her arms around her, swaying with her as the cheering swept over them. But Sophie felt it when her mother stiffened, and she knew she must have seen them. 

“Sorry, sweetheart, I need to go… freshen up.” 

Hawke exited the room, pursued by Merrill, and Sophie cursed herself, hopping off the stage. Before she could figure out what to do next, a rich voice was calling her name. 

"Soph!" She allowed herself to be pulled into a powerful hug. 

"Aunt Aveline! I thought you couldn't make it!" She wasn’t wearing her armor for once, but she still had her captain’s sword strapped around her waist. She’d always said it was because her mother attracted trouble like flies to a dead fish, but Sophie had never seen so much as a giant spider growing up. 

"I would never miss this, little Hawke. I don’t know how your mother does it-- my knees are falling apart after all these years on the streets. But what are they doing here?" 

Sophie followed her gaze to see her dads moving in different directions across the room. 

"Liara!" She said with a nod toward Anders. 

"On it." 

"Tali!" She gestured quickly toward Sebastian. 

"Right." 

Her friends engaged their intercept mission, and Sophie relaxed as she watched Fenris slip out the back. 

Aveline raised an eyebrow, but she didn't seem keen to get involved with whatever shenanigans were occurring. "Introduce me to this Fereldan of yours. I have to make sure he’s hardy enough to handle a Hawke for a wife." 

Sophie barely listened as Kaidan and Aveline discussed their homeland, whether the king was any good, and eventually blades and their uses. This, at least, was a relation Kaidan couldn't get upset about. She admired how Kaidan could talk to anyone about the most boring topics on the planet, but when they began to discuss shields, Sophie excused herself and wound up face to face with Anders. 

“Fancy Hawke having a grown up daughter,” he said with a smile and a shake of his head.

Sophie scanned the room for Liara, and found her apologetically retrieving drinks as she made her way back across the room. She gave hers to Sophie, who took a long swig before asking, "Do you have any children, Anders?" 

"Well I have the two cats, Fernando and Helen, and that's about the extent of my relations. I would have loved to have had a child in another life, but Wardens are rarely able to. And, well, back in those days, the risk of your child being a mage who could get taken away at any time… it was something I spoke about with your mother often." 

“Was it really so bad?”

“Families were never allowed to stay together in the Circles. Love was… a vulnerability that few were willing to risk.”

Sophie looked at Liara, another mage, and tried to imagine it. Kaidan was a mage, too. If they had been only a few years older, would they have been taken away from each other? Would they never have had the chance to fall in love? Was it why her mother had loved all of them and none of them? 

Anders pulled her out of her reverie. “Where is your father, anyway? I had thought to see what kind of man got Donna to settle down." 

“I don’t know." She took a deep breath and stared into Anders' eyes, feeling emboldened by the wine. She spoke her next words very deliberately. “I don’t know who he is.”

"Sophie! Come meet my parents," Kaidan said, grabbing her arm before she could gauge his reaction. 

Sophie was whirled around the room, meeting Fereldans left and right. She smiled and held Kaidan's arm and laughed at jokes and told them that yes, she really did grow up with her own mabari, and his relatives’ faces lit up at that. A girl with her own mabari had to be a good match. She wasn’t sure she’d ever talked to this many people in one night before, and she felt herself growing completely exhausted. Excusing herself for some air, she ran straight into another guest, losing her balance with the force of the impact. Sebastian caught her arm to keep her from falling on her face. Maker, the man was solid for his age.

He bowed his head to her as she found her footing. “Lady Hawke.” 

“I’m not a lady, your highness.” 

“Then I insist we both agree to dispense with titles." He flashed a bright smile at her. "Tell me, are you going to return to Ferelden with your betrothed after the wedding?”

“I’ve never been to Ferelden, so I’m not sure it would count as returning. But no, we’re going to travel.” 

“The urge for adventure thrumming in your veins?" He raised a teasing eyebrow at her. "Please do let me know if you come to Starkhaven. I’m sure my boys would…love to show you around...” He trailed off as a look of consternation came over his face. “How old are you?” He blinked and gathered himself. “Pardon me for asking. Excuse me." 

She grabbed his arm before he could go. "I'm twenty." 

She swallowed hard as he took in that information. Was his face falling? Was that disappointment? 

"I… I see." He tore away from her arm again, his long legs quickly taking him across the room. 

"Sebastian wait!" 

She caught up to him in the tiny hallway leading to the cellars. He clearly hadn't chosen a specific direction in his flight. "Are you my father?" 

He looked her up and down, his face etched with concern, but maybe, somewhere in there, a touch of softness. "Yes. I think so. I think I must be." 

She looked in his eyes, her own nervousness reflected there. He must have recognized something in her, something of himself in order to admit it. He was her father. A bubble of elation rose in her chest. Sophie Hawke had a father. “You don’t have to claim me,” she assured him, “I only just wanted to know. To know you.” 

“Claim you? I… I should... Do you mind if I take a moment to sit down?”

She led him to an empty chair somewhat out of the way of the rest of the festivities. “I’ll get you some water.” 

Sebastian gave her a true smile then and thanked her. She rushed back into the main hall, ready to finally have a heart to heart with her own true father, when Anders stepped in front of her, a stunned smile on his face. 

"Maker’s breath. I'm your father." 

"Anders!" 

"That's why you invited me here. I never thought… but it can happen." 

She looked at his delighted face, and anxiety pitted in her belly. Was Sebastian wrong? Did he only think he was her father because of a sense of duty and because Sophie put him on the spot? She hadn't asked Anders, and here he was, declaring it. 

“I won’t ruin your life by telling anyone, but…” He put a hand to her cheek. “I’ll find a way to make it up to you.” 

He released her, quickly wiping his eyes while excusing himself. Sophie stood there, stunned. 

The room felt too hot, too crowded. All the chatting and laughing was too loud. Drink was flowing, and someone crashed into the stage her mother had performed on. Sophie snatched her mother’s guitar before it fell to the ground and went outside to get some air. 

As she walked the dark path to yet another vista of the ocean, she tried to push down the discomfort and guilt. Everyone was here for her, she knew, and she was happy for it, but growing up on this island, she’d almost never had to deal with so many people at once. And now she had two fathers, one who wanted her and one who maybe didn't, and in two days she’d be leaving her home forever and nothing could ever be the same again. Maybe, she reflected, this hadn’t exactly been the ideal time to figure out her paternity. She sat on a stone wall and absently began to pluck out a familiar tune, humming along. 

She jumped when she realized she was not alone. 

“Apologies,” Fenris said, “I was intending to find your mother, to tell her that I mean her no harm by coming here, but I heard you singing, and for a moment I thought you were her. That song--”

“Do you know it? My mom used to sing it to me when I was a baby.” 

“She did?” Fenris smiled, but somehow he just ended up looking sad. “To answer your question, I am familiar with the song. Varric and I wrote it about your mother after they came back from the Deep Roads. Here, hand me… what appears to be Anders’ guitar.”

“It’s my mother’s!”

“It is not. Well, after twenty years I suppose it is. But she clearly stole it from Anders. Here,” he said, turning it around and pointing at an old ink stain, “This smeared writing used to say ‘liberty for all mages.’ It was the closest thing he had to a signature. And he wrote it on everything.” 

He began to play Sophie’s lullaby with somewhat altered words. 

_ I have a dream, a song to sing _

_ To help me cope with anything _

_ If you see the wonder in a fireball _

_ You can fool the templars, even when they call, _

_ I believe in mages, something good in everyone I meet, _

_ I believe in mages, even when they’re falling at my feet. _

_ I have a dream _

_ And lightning beam _

“I think I like the version she wrote for me better,” Sophie said. The words were close, too close, and it made Sophie uncomfortable to think her dad’s voice might have been there the entire time had things gone a little differently. If Fenris had been her father, which he wasn’t. The knot in her stomach grew tighter as she thought about Anders and Sebastian. 

"She had more of a knack for it than I did. She made verses for all of us. Let’s see, I remember… ‘I believe in Bastian, someday going to take his family’s throne, I believe in Varric, going to steal the Hanged Man for his own.” He laughed and set the guitar down. "But you have obliged this old man long enough. Wouldn't you rather be inside with your friends?" 

"I'm… taking a break. Recharging before I have to tell yet another new relative how I trained a war dog to fish off the pier." 

"Hm. I also tend to find events like this exhausting. Enjoyable at times, but exhausting nonetheless." 

"Mom has always been better with crowds than I have. I don't know how she does it. Guess I didn't inherit that trait," she muttered almost as an afterthought. Although given everything else her mother had apparently done in her life, enjoying parties hardly seemed the most impressive. Which of her two fathers seemed most ill at ease in a crowd? Probably Anders. 

"She does have a singular talent to entertain. Although, all of these songs we've talked about today… I don't want you to get the wrong impression. Your mother wrote all these stupid and blasphemous songs because she was scared all the time.” He shook his head. 

Of everything she'd learned today, this beggared belief. "Scared? Donna Hawke? She was the Champion! She killed the Arishok in single combat!"

"Yes. He stabbed her clear through and we all thought she would die. It was harrowing." Fenris sighed. "You grew up hiding on a pleasant island in a world without proper Circles. You can't know what it was like back then, and I don't blame Hawke for wanting you to grow up never knowing such fear. She told me once she thought Meredith making her tranquil was an inevitability. She didn't know how much time she had, simply that it was limited.” He watched the gentle ocean waves, gleaming in the moonlight. “And I was terrified, too. It's why I wrote those songs with her. In fact, she’s the reason I learned to play at all." 

Sophie couldn’t explain the way the anxiety in her stomach was turning to anger. She wished he hadn’t ruined that song for her. She wished she’d never invited this man to her island. That he wasn't spilling her mother's secrets and changing her perception of her own life. He didn't have the right. "I thought you hated magic and mages. Reading Varric's book, I thought you'd want her in the Circle. Want me in a Circle." 

He met her eyes with an air of old sadness. “I would have died for your mother if the templars came calling.” Sophie felt her heart in her throat. She believed him. "Simplicity sells books,” he continued, “One of us was pro-mages at any cost, another was pro-Circle, another pro-Chantry. And so on." Fenris shrugged. "The truth was I befriended three mages in a country that enslaves and imprisons them. I knew what that meant. I was scared all the time." 

"Is that why you left?" 

"Perhaps. What has your mother told you about it?" 

"Nothing. She's never… she's never mentioned you." His eyes bored into her as Sophie realized the lie she'd told him was now unraveling. She tried to backpedal, to distract. "Did you write any other songs for my mother?" 

"Sophie, why am I here?" 

She had no answer for him. 

“Where is your father?”

“I don’t know,” she spat through clenched teeth, “I never met him, and my mother never told me anything about him.” 

“What kind of a man would--” 

He didn’t finish that sentence, and Sophie could have laughed. What kind of man would leave her mother like that? What kind of man would never know his child? What kind of man would shove his foot so far down his own mouth it came out the other side? 

As it turned out, Fenris knew exactly what kind of man would do those things. "How long have you known I am your father?" 

Sophie felt like throwing up. All three now thought she was their daughter. She still had no idea. "Not long at all." 

He actually smiled, damn him. He didn't even have the courtesy to look scared or angry or put off or regretful. He just smiled, and Sophie could have throttled him for that, if she didn't suddenly feel like sobbing. 

Just then another voice called her name, and Sophie jumped up, eager for the escape. Kaidan was looking for her. Fenris reached out his hand as if to grab her wrist, then thought better of it. “Sophie--”

“Leave me alone, Fenris. You’ve had plenty of practice at it.” 

She dropped her face to Kaidan's chest the moment it presented itself and took a deep breath. "Are you alright? Was he bothering you?" 

"I'm fine. Let's just go." 

She tugged him along the path, away from Fenris. She felt an anger at her third dad that she couldn't entirely explain. Maybe because he had broken her mother's heart and now acted like he had loved her the entire time. That must be it, a protectiveness for her mother. She should have thought about her feelings before she invited them all here. It was insensitive of her. Impulsive. And now, on top of everything, she was lying by omission to Kaidan. 

She steeled herself to tell him everything, but at that moment, several things happened at once. Something whistled past Sophie's ear. Kaidan bodily shoved her to the ground. And as she fell, she saw Fenris glowing in the dark, moving faster than a person could, seemingly without even moving his feet properly. He plunged his arm straight into a person's body.

Kaidan started casting from the ground next to Sophie, a barrier going up over them, and she joined him, lighting up the sky with a ball of electricity. The minute she did, a volley of arrows was loosed against one group of now-visible attackers as Kaidan blasted another off the cliff's edge with force magic. Tali came running, bow in hand, and Sophie made a fist and pulled, the rest of the assailants frying as her lightning struck. 

She cut the lightning ball, pitching them into relative darkness except for the glow of Fenris. They stood, panting, waiting for more. 

"You ripped a man's heart out," Sophie said, "Varric wasn't using metaphor. You actually just pulled it right out. I _ heard _it." 

Fenris started to dim, but approaching footsteps caused him to whip around. Hawke led Sebastian, Anders, Aveline, and Liara. Her eyes swept over the carnage, and she said, "Sophie, go to your room." 

"What? Why?" 

"Kaidan, make sure she gets there."

Sophie watched as her fiance actually saluted her mother. "Ma'am." 

He took her hand, and Sophie was dragged unceremoniously away from whatever it was just happened. 


	4. Does Your Mother Know

As Hawke soaked in the applause for her reunion performance, embracing her daughter in perhaps one of the last hugs she would get before Sophie departed for a life of adventure, her eyes landed on Anders, Sebastian, and Fenris in the back of the room. The three of them were applauding as loudly as anyone else. Sebastian actually put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. 

Hawke thumped off the stage and ran up the stairs to her room, Merrill and Varric following behind her. 

"Why are they all here? What have they ever done for their daughter?" 

"Hawke, they didn't even know she existed,” Varric said, already panting from the exertion of climbing so many steps, “You were very clear on that part! I never told a soul." 

"And I did a great job all by myself! Sophie and I don't need some… man… inserting himself into our lives!" 

"Well it seems like they've already inserted themselves," Merrill said, inducing a wince and a guffaw from Varric, "So maybe now we go talk to them? Or at the very least stop them from talking to Sophie?"

Hawke burst into her bedroom. "Right. Varric, tomorrow, you'll take Anders." 

"Take him where?" 

"To the Deep Roads for all I care, just take him. And Merrill, you take Sebastian." 

"And who will take Fenris?" 

Hawke closed her eyes and let her head drop back against the wall. "I'm sure Isabela would if I asked." 

She didn’t miss the look that passed between her two friends. "It's been twenty years. If they still want to fuck, they might as well go for it if it will help this wedding go smoothly. And I can't expect him to have been alone all this time."

"You have been," Merrill said, earning her a glare. "Well, other than the whole Sebastian and Anders thing." 

"Yes, thanks Merrill, very helpful. Let's just… let's get everyone downstairs plastered and we'll deal with the other issues tomorrow." 

_ If they're drunk, maybe they won't be able to recognize their own daughter. _ She didn't have time to worry about that, though. When Hawke went back into the feast, she found Isabela being accosted by two unfortunately brave young men. 

“Pirate Isabela, by order of the King, we arrest you for… piracy.” 

_ Tacky _ , Hawke thought, as they unsheathed their weapons and pointed them at Isabela’s back. The fifty-year-old pirate who had never once been successfully arrested threw back the rest of her drink and drew her daggers up in one swift movement. "It's _Admiral _, but let's dance if you think it's funny." 

She had them disarmed before they even knew what hit them. “Oh, sweet things, does your king even know you’re out with the dread Admiral Isabela?”

The boys looked pitifully at Hawke for help, but she just shook her head. “Stop teasing them.” The pirate took their swords and belts and sent them off with their tails between their legs. 

Hawke scanned the room and saw Sophie was safely on Kaidan’s arm, nowhere near any of her fathers. Fenris was missing, thank blessed Andraste. She decided she could take on Anders more easily than Sebastian, and started making her way across the room when yet another young man decided to try to arrest Isabela. Had they taken bets? Was this some Maker-forsaken test of bravery? 

“Oh, you’re so cute,” Isabela said as her daggers met his sword, “I like your style.” 

"Isabela, could you refrain from trashing my home the day before my daughter's wedding?" 

She gave the boy a swift kick and he stumbled away from her. "Oh come on, Donna, someone needs a good spanking." 

"Izzy, he is too young for that kind of fun, cut it out." 

In the end, she got three more swords and buckles, and Hawke was only going to have to replace one table. The flowers were not salvageable, and Kaidan’s great aunt was never going to forgive her for catastrophic damage to her hat, but it could have been worse. 

This foolishness handled, and now Sophie, Sebastian, and Anders were out of sight. Hawke sighed. She climbed back on her stage and addressed the room. “Listen, to all of you in the Navy, I know your duties are driving you wild, and just the sight of my dear and close friend Isabela gets you worked up, but for tonight, please, just take it easy. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to try and arrest her in the future, but I ask that you wait until after the wedding.” 

“Hawke,” Isabela called from across the room. There was a clash of steel. 

“Really? I just said to cool it.”

“Donna!” 

More swords were drawn, and they were not just aimed at Isabela. They were under attack. Hawke was out of the habit of bringing her staff with her to parties, and she was not the only one. Two barriers hit her at once before multiple swords were swung her direction. From her vantage point on the stage, she had a good view of the room, but then, every archer had a good view of her. Varric was unarmed, and she froze the man lunging at him. Isabela tossed one of her many confiscated swords at Sebastian, who swung and shattered the attacker. 

Aveline was engaged, but she was winning, so that was alright. Merrill held three men in the grips of her vines, and Hawke couldn’t help but mourn the floor of her inn. _ Not important right now, Donna _, she thought as an arrow bounced off her barrier. She found the archer and pummeled him with a shard of ice, unwilling to risk adding burn marks to the damages of her home. She winced as she heard the shattering of crockery. 

Their enemies, whoever they were, were easily outmatched. Even halfway into their cups, Kaidan’s friends acquitted themselves well, only a few sustaining any injuries of note. Anders moved to heal them. Varric also sustained a minor stab wound. Everyone else was unharmed. 

Hawke turned to Liara, who was surprisingly adept at battle magic. "Where is Sophie?" 

"She went outside a while ago. I think Kaidan is with her." 

“Izzy, Merrill, stay here and protect Kaidan’s family. And get these bodies out of here.” She walked out into the night to find her daughter and some answers. 

The ball of light in the sky confirmed her fears-- the attackers were not just inside, and they had found Sophie. Hawke started running, and when the light suddenly disappeared, she started sprinting. 

She found Sophie unharmed, and she intended to keep her that way. Even Kaidan and Tali had seen more battle than Sophie ever had. She would be safer at home, and she sent her back. 

As soon as her daughter left, Hawke rounded on those left. Her tone was soft when she asked, “Which one of you brought your conflicts to my island?”

She already knew it wasn’t Isabela, navy boys aside. It could be Anders, it could always be Anders, though at this point he seemed more likely to attract Darkspawn than anything else. Varric would never be so clumsy, and Aveline left her enemies behind in the Free Marches. That left these two. 

“To my knowledge, there is no contract on me,” Sebastian assured her, “Hasn’t been in years. If you have a raven, I can send one off and see if that has changed. In fact--” he suddenly looked very fearful “--I should like to check on my sons.” 

Hawke gave him directions to the rookery and turned her attention back to this mess. Fenris and Aveline were checking over the bodies. “Who are they? Crows? Viddithari? Chantry agents? Tevinter?” She spat the last word, and Fenris’s eyes flicked up to hers. 

With a huff, Aveline dropped the corpse she was frisking. “There’s nothing identifying here.” 

“The attackers were all men,” Hawke said, “Elves and humans. Does that mean anything?” 

Nobody had anything useful to say. Hawke lit the pile of bodies on fire with an angry snap. 

“Then I suggest everyone reconvene at the inn.” 

She stayed behind, trying to cool her anger. There were scorch marks on the ground from where her daughter had to attack random men bent on killing her. Of course Hawke had trained her, and of course Sophie was talented, but Hawke had also tried her best to create a life where she didn’t have to live by her staff, a life she had never had. She cursed. 

“She’s skilled with her magic,” Fenris said. Hawke jumped, not realizing he hadn’t left with the others. “The boy, too. They will compliment each other well, I think.” 

Hawke took a breath. “Thank you for protecting my daughter tonight. But so help me, if I find out these assassins are Tevinter or in any way connected to you--” 

“I understand. I have no reason to believe my enemies would attempt such a thing, but I will make my own inquiries.” 

“Do that,” she spat while walking away. 

~~

Kaidan didn’t stay with Sophie long when they got back to the inn. He rushed them inside, but then told her it was bad luck to stay with her the night before the wedding. Sophie wasn’t sure what could be worse luck than three men claiming her for a daughter, or, she supposed, being attacked by unknown men for unknown reasons, but he was firm. She slept poorly, nervous for all the wrong reasons the night before her wedding. She was supposed to feel excited and scared and bubbly and instead she felt dread at her fathers finding out the truth and what Kaidan would think of her for this mess. 

She had to tell him. 

She ran into her mother first. 

Hawke was sweeping up the wreckage from the night before. Sophie hadn’t even noticed when she’d been rushed to her room, but now she saw there had obviously been a battle here as well. Hawke dropped the broom and approached her daughter. “Hold on, Sophie. Come back. Look at me. What’s wrong?”

It was infuriating, but Sophie had never been able to hide anything from her mother. It was like Hawke had learned mind-control. Not only did she get Sophie to spill everything, but just one look from her and even the most determined pout ended in laughter. It had to be magic, but her mother had never taught it to her. 

Sophie sighed. “I think I made a mistake, and I don’t know how to fix it. And I don’t know how to tell Kaidan.” 

“Oh, sweetheart.” Hawke drew her into her arms. “Well, I understand completely. I'll take care of everything. You don’t have to get married today.”

Sophie pulled away. “What?”

“That’s what you meant, isn’t it? I’m not saying you shouldn’t get married, but we don’t know who attacked us last night, and it’s not safe. Who knows how much worse it will be once you’re on the mainland. So say the word and I’ll tell everyone to just go home and we can figure this out together.” 

“I can’t believe you.” Sophie was practically vibrating with rage. “No, I can!” She ran her hand through her hair, pacing aimlessly. “I’m tired of being safe. I’m tired of this island! You were so scared of the Circles that you turned this whole island into a Circle! You locked me away from the world. What is the point of freedom if I’m stuck here? I would never do that to my children.” 

Hawke stared at her daughter, mouth ajar, but Sophie wasn’t done. “I love Kaidan, and I’m marrying him today and… and I don’t want my children hidden away not knowing who their father is because it’s crap!” 

She stormed away from her mother, already regretting her words. 

~

Fenris lurked in a corner as he watched Hawke clean up the mess from the previous night. Sophie had exited out a moment ago, but she hadn’t even seemed to notice him. Now Hawke was yelling at some of Kaidan’s hungover friends to help her clean or get lost, and they chose to run. She was not in the ideal mood for him to approach her. 

Well. It wasn’t like he had anything to lose. “I see you kept my tambourine.” 

She dropped it on top of the piano with a disgusted sound. “They’re supposed to ward off unwanted visitors.”

“You don’t need a tambourine to do that.”

“Well, not all of us can rip a heart out of a chest as well as you can.” She flipped over an upended chair, and sighed as one of the legs fell to the floor. “What are you doing here, Fenris?”

It was a good question. When he thought Hawke had invited him to the island, he’d believed it was a good time to put the past behind them. Shake hands, come to terms, see what she had made of her life. But then, of course, she hadn’t invited him, and it seemed twenty years had not dulled her anger. Or her beauty, wit, or charm. He still found himself helplessly drawn to her. It was enlightening.

“This was our dream, remember? Running away to somewhere sunny, setting down our weapons. Letting our guard down and just existing.” 

She didn’t look up at him. “Well this is my reality. And thanks to someone’s carelessness, the island is now as violent as anywhere else.”

He thought if he could get her to look at him, to connect, he might have a chance at a real conversation. Perhaps the conversation he meant to have twenty years ago. “You used to talk freely to me, Hawke. About everything. And now, even with you standing here, it seems as if you are miles away.”

She tried to force that chair’s leg into place, cursing when it just wouldn’t fit. “Whatever there was between us all those years ago, I’m afraid it died.”

“I don’t believe that,” he said quietly. If she heard, she made no sign of it. “Here, let me.” 

“I can do it myself!” She shrugged him off. “Somehow I doubt carpentry is one of the many skills you’ve picked up over these years.” 

She still refused to look at him, and strangely, this gave him hope. If she could be this angry and hurt, surely she felt something for him still. The love she had once given him--that he had foolishly rejected-- maybe there was a way to resuscitate it. He thought of the apologies he had prepared so long ago, words practiced over and over, and he knew he had to try. Though, perhaps he would wait until she wasn’t using force magic to get an ill-used chair to stay together. It collapsed into itself, splinters flying everywhere. 

“Oh, fuck the chair,” Hawke said, leaving the room. 

Well. He could at least help her prepare the inn for the wedding. He set himself to cleaning, fixing what could be fixed, and removing from sight what could not. He would find a way to reach Hawke this time. Her mind could not remain closed forever. 

~

Hawke would never admit it, but she'd had dreams like this for years. Fenris found her, somehow, apologized somehow, although she'd never settled on the exact words that might win her over, then he met Sophie and he loved her, too, and somehow the three of them made it work. 

They were the naive dreams of a wounded girl, and Hawke put them away with her staff and title when she got the inn up and running fifteen years ago. But watching him clean her hall, rehang flowers that had fallen, put the chairs in order, she could almost imagine it had really happened. That it could happen. 

Just letting herself feel that way ached in a way she wasn't sure she could recover from. Letting her feelings get away from her is what caused all of this in the first place. And Donna Hawke was too old for such longings. 

She headed toward the veranda to check on preparations there. But as soon as Hawke left one ghost from her past behind, another caught up with her. Sebastian looked calmer than the night before, as ridiculously handsome as ever-- silver hair just _ suited _him-- and strangely happy. 

“Is your family well, then?” she asked. 

“I have just heard back. No attacks in Starkhaven. All is well.” 

Hawke forced a polite smile. “That is good.”

“Yes, it is good.”

“Well. Good then.” 

Hawke wondered how much longer she could withstand the awkwardness of this conversation. 

“Well, I--”

“Hawke. I have done you and Sophie a great disservice.” 

She blinked and found herself staring into those deep blue eyes of his. It seemed an overstatement for crashing a wedding, and easily remedied if he would just leave, but she nodded graciously, her voice momentarily eluding her. 

“I regret how I left it in Kirkwall,” he continued, “Through the Maker’s grace, I have come to believe that leaving was the right thing to do. Knowing me and knowing you, our marriage would have been a disaster. It was good you saw that at the time. I just took a little longer to face it. Truth be told, I think I only proposed to you in order to assuage my own guilt at breaking my vow of celibacy so spectacularly.”

Hawke didn’t tell him that she had suspected as much at the time and never had any intention of saying yes, though it had been spectacular. "Why did you? Break your vow, I mean. I always felt… I don't know. Like I had spoiled you, I guess. Led you astray with my magical ways and…” She shook her head. “It felt like I spoiled something between us that was, I don’t know, better than just a night in the sack." 

Sebastian rubbed the back of his neck, looking almost bashful. "When Fenris left, I thought that perhaps I finally had a chance to catch your attention. I had already made up my mind to leave the Chantry and return to Starkhaven. So breaking my vow… but it was a mistake. Or… well. The Maker works in mysterious ways.” 

Hawke stared across her sprawling property, out to the horizon where the ocean sparkled in the sun. It was so easy not to think about those days in Kirkwall here. But there was something almost comfortable about talking about them with Sebastian. “You’ve always believed I was a better person than I am. I liked that about you. It made me want to be better. I know I bitterly disappointed you.”

“I must admit, it took me years of prayer to forgive you, but I have. All of those memories, the good days and bad days, I have reconciled in my heart. It was wrong of me to declare war on you as I did, especially given what we had together, and what has come of it.” Hawke felt a certain jolt at that. Could he possibly mean Sophie? What else could have come from their relationship? “As for Anders, were he not here under your auspices, I cannot say I would not seek the justice so many were denied that night.” 

Hawke let out a bitter laugh. She'd also had twenty years to consider her mistakes and where she had gone wrong. “Was I supposed to just execute him in the street? I didn't know the Champion also served as Headman for Meredith." 

"I apologize again, Hawke. I did not come here to criticize your decisions. I believe you did your best. Despite what you said earlier, there is none better than you. Well, except for maybe Sophie. She’s--”

“She’s special.” With that dazed happy glint in Sebastian’s eye, Hawke now had no doubt he thought she was his. 

“Aye. Exactly.” 

Hawke’s heart was racing. A small part of her was so deeply relieved that he seemed pleased with his daughter, but the rest of her was just not ready to give up even an inch of Sophie to someone else. “I heard you have your own children. And a wife.”

The glint in his eye faded as Sebastian turned somber. “My late wife was an amazing mother. I was blessed to have such a partner.”

Hawke had not heard that she had passed. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

His jaw clenched. “It was the world’s loss. And she is with the Maker now. But this is not why I sought you out this morning.” Sebastian thrust a bulging coin purse into Hawke’s hand. “Sophie should have a comfortable life with opportunities. I was not prepared when I came here, there’s more, and I hope she’ll come to Starkhaven, but for now I hope this can help with the cost of the wedding at least.” 

“She already--” Hawke started, but Sebastian was already walking away. Hawke stared at the money in her hand. So, out of all of them, Sebastian thought he was her father. She should feel lucky he only gave her money and didn’t demand Sophie begin her noble education at once. Still, accepting it felt like accepting his version of the truth, and she couldn’t do that. She set the bag down and stared out toward the ocean again. 

~

When Sophie finally found Kaidan by the beach, they spoke simultaneously. “Kaidan, I’ve done something completely insane.”

“Sophie, were you going to tell me that your mother was the Champion of Kirkwall? Wait, what?”

“Why does it matter that my mother was the Champion?”

“Why does it matter? Maker’s breath, Sophie, she’s… I mean that’s why… I knew I recognized that name. Fenris. And Prince Vael. The Viscount of Kirkwall and the Captain of the Guard… and that Warden is Anders. Did everyone know but me? I can’t believe this.” He paced along the beach, piecing it together and shaking his head. 

“Kaidan--” If he was angry at her about her mother, what would he say about her fathers? Would he even still want her? Why hadn’t she thought of a single consequence to meeting these men? “It’s not like I ever lied to you about who I am! It’s not like I gave you a fake name and said, ‘Hi, I’m Sophie Shepard or whatever, don’t ask about my mom.’ I said I was Sophie Hawke. It’s not my fault you didn’t realize who I was! And anyway, I always just thought that ‘Champion’ was a dumb nickname her friends gave her to annoy her! Like the Black Wolf of Qarinus or whatever.”

“Of Tevinter, and Maker's breath, you shouted at him last night. Do you have any idea how dangerous these people are? They say the Black Wolf only smiles when he rips someone’s heart out. Shit, Anders blew up an entire city!”

“Only the chantry! The rest of the city just burned down after. And Fenris smiles, like, all the time.” 

"Yeah, because that's a really meaningful distinction, Soph. And last night my friends were trying to arrest your ‘Aunt Izzy.’" 

“How is that my fault? What kind of person arrests someone at a wedding?” 

“That’s not what I meant. I just… you didn't tell me who you are. I mean, why did you even invite the Black Wolf of Tevinter? What is he even doing here?" 

"Fenris? He's…" She swallowed. She couldn't tell him now. "I mean it's not like I invited the Dread Wolf." 

"He… you...” Kaidan’s voice dropped. “Sophie, is the Dread Wolf coming to our wedding?" 

"No!" She looked into his terrified brown eyes and realized she had no idea at this point. She'd completely lost control of this wedding and this argument. "I mean, I don't think so. I mean, I know he and Merrill were close, but also I think they were enemies? Honestly it's really hard to tell from her stories." 

Kaidan just stared at her. He slowly pulled out a paper from his pocket. "My parents got a letter from the King of Ferelden congratulating me on my nuptials. Why does Alistair even know who I am? Do you know him, too?" 

"Of course not," she said, taking the letter from him. Except… she had a memory. A man with golden eyes who made her mother cry. _ Uncle Ali. _ He visited the island once or twice after they got set up, gave each of them a mabari. "I think he's the one who gave me Boo," she whispered. 

Kaidan groaned. She quickly scanned the pages as he continued, "I know you and your mother don't technically have titles, but Maker's breath, I thought you were just a commoner like me." 

"This isn't a letter of congratulations," Sophie murmured. Kaidan gave her a questioning look, and she continued, "It's meant to look like one, but he's saying that if you marry me, you can't ever rejoin the Navy. I think he doesn't want you to go back to Ferelden at all. Not with me." 

Kaidan took the letter back, crumpling as if all the air had been knocked out of him. They each stared at the ground, chantry bells ringing in the distance. "What does this mean? For us?" 

"I don't know." The bright, sunny day didn’t suit this conversation at all. It should be raining. Sophie had heard it was good luck for it to rain on a wedding. The sound of laughter drifted toward them from somewhere along the beach. Their friends, family, all gathered here for them, for their future. With nothing left to lose now, Sophie might as well tell him the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to mention, a year later, that I gave Fenris his nickname like three days before it was announced he had a much cooler nickname. Thanks for that, Bioware.


	5. The Winner Takes It All

Donna shouldn’t have been surprised when Anders found her. It was just the kind of day for estranged friends from twenty years ago to try and start a conversation. And maybe because her talk with Sebastian landed somewhere peaceful, she felt open to it. Anders had just opened his mouth to speak when the Chantry Bells rang, marking the hour, startling them both. 

“Those bells always remind me of the chantry in Kirkwall,” she said. “I could hear it so clearly from my estate.”

Anders looked taken aback, whatever he was about to say forgotten. “Are you still angry at me for Kirkwall? Did you ever regret letting me go?” 

The question was sincere, but Hawke snorted. There were times she wanted all three of them dead, but none more so than Anders. She sat down at table she had just finished decorating and beckoned Anders to join her. “We were so young and full of life and none of us were prepared to die. I certainly wasn’t prepared to kill you. So no, I don’t regret letting you go. Do you regret what you did?”

“No," he said simply. "I did it for you and me, for liberty and freedom for all mages. And we _ are _ free now. If I had to do the same again, I would. My only regret… I thought that by keeping you out of it, I was protecting you.” 

“I know you thought that." Hawke sighed, remembering how more than anything, it was his naivety that made her want to kill him. A mage in Kirkwall, commonly known as a close friend of the Champion, the most notorious apostate in the Free Marches, blew up a Chantry. How could she not be implicated? Meredith's solution was to murder _ all _mages. And he thought that by having her collect the materials for a bomb and distract Elthina while he planted it, she would be spared simply because she was too stupid to know what she had done? Apathy or arrogance, he had destroyed her life in Kirkwall. "Maker, I was so afraid. You know they kidnapped Varric to try to get to me? And then the Inquisition took my brother…” 

“I heard. I’m sorry. He was a good man. The Order still remembers him and his sacrifice at Adamant.”

Hawke sighed and leaned back in her chair. She didn’t want to be thinking about Carver today. He was Sophie’s age when she lost him to the Wardens. It had been too long since she heard him grumble about her poor life choices. And on a day like today, watching his niece get married to a good man… she would have liked to have listened to him critique the groom and the feast and the decorations. She changed the subject. "Now we’re old and gray, Anders. It’s all in the past.”

“I’m gray,” he said with a chuckle, “You look… same as ever, really.” 

A lie, unless that last year in Kirkwall had hit her harder than she thought. For one thing, all this time in the Antivan sun had darkened her skin and given her freckles. And lines. “Has life been kind to you?”

He gave her a sad smile. “No.” Right. Stupid question. An ex-warden, an apostate, a fugitive… she could only imagine what he'd had to do over the years to survive. “The past few years, I’ve actually been back with the Grey Wardens.”

“I never thought you’d return to them.”

“Neither did I, but then again, I didn’t expect to live this long. I’m one of the only ones left who remembers the Blight. Despite everything else, that affords me a certain place of honor among them.”

“We’re not that old, Anders.”

“For a Warden, I am. I can hear it now, the drums calling me to the Deep Roads. It won't be too long. It’s why I was glad when I received-- when I found out that you were on this island. With the darkspawn I was sent to root out.” 

Donna put her hands on her hips, leaning forward in her chair. “Who told you, Anders? Isabella? Varric?” 

“Just a happy coincidence. And I mean it. Meeting your daughter… reminds me what I was fighting for all those years ago. She got to grow up free. It's beyond my wildest dreams.” His voice broke and he paused, holding a hand over his eyes. “Forgive me. Getting sentimental in my old age.”

He stood up to leave, but Hawke caught his wrist before he could go. He sniffed, still pinching the bridge of his nose, tears escaping anyway. 

"Anders I… I'm glad you came. I'm glad we put the past behind us." 

“Me, too, Hawke.” 

~~

Sophie steeled herself for her confession to Kaidan. The wedding was hours away, and she was about to blow the whole thing up. Better to get it over with decisively. “I didn’t tell you who I am because I don’t think I rightly knew. My mom has never been anything other than my mother to me. This Champion stuff is… I don’t even know.” She took a deep breath. “And… the reason I invited those men-- Fenris, Sebastian, Anders-- was because one of them is my father. And I thought if I knew, if I met him, I would understand this piece of myself that’s been missing. But I don't even know which one he is. It turns out I don’t think I know anything at all.” 

Kaidan put a hand on her shoulder, then drew her in for a hug. She dragged her eyes up from the sand to see his face and found what had dreaded most: something akin to disappointment. His narrowed eyes stared at nothing as he processed the information. 

“Shit. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? These three men… they have enemies. You could be a target.”

“Nobody knows. I already told Sebastian he didn’t have to claim me, and Anders said he wouldn’t.”

“They know?” 

She pulled away from him. “They… figured it out last night. Separately. They all think… They each think they are my father, and I don’t know which one is. And I don’t know what to do. They are going to hate me.” 

“This is worse than that.”

“What could be worse than that?”

“The Champion of Kirkwall had a child with someone who was in Kirkwall with her. You don’t think anyone else could figure out the math? Take Sebastian, for example. If his sons knew about you, figured it out from the invitation, or his wife’s family, they could want you dead.” 

“Sebastian would never--”

“No, but other people would. His whole family was killed by assassins. In the Marches, blood matters. And Anders and Fenris… they have more enemies than he does. Sophie, for all we know, those men last night were here for you.” 

“I didn’t think--”

“No, you didn’t think.” Kaidan’s wheels were still spinning. “Last night could even have been just a shore party from a bigger invasion. We have nobility, royalty, pirates, assassins, powerful apostates all meeting on this island. Not to mention…” Kaidan groaned, massaging his temples with his hand. 

“Not to mention what?”

“I invited almost the entire Fereldan Navy. Antiva could legitimately think this is an attack on their soil.” He sighed heavily. “Shit. This is bad.” 

“I get it, Kaidan. I’m a hopeless child who shouldn’t be getting married, right? So stupid I invited my own assassins to our wedding?” 

“What?” He turned back to her, reaching for her hand. “No. Sophie, of course I want to marry you. And you’re not stupid, I just… shit. This is… there’s a lot more going on here than I was ready for. I…” A burst of laughter down the beach drew his attention. His friends were approaching. “I have to go get ready. I should tell my friends to prepare for… well for anything.” 

“Kaidan--” He strode away without a second glance, pausing only to shoot a glare at Fenris. Where had the man even come from? She hadn’t heard his approach. 

“Are you well?” he asked. 

If he had overheard any of that, he knew damn well she wasn’t. “I’m fantastic,” she hissed. 

“Shall I talk to him?”

She let out an angry laugh. “What, and just convince him to leave for good and never turn back?” 

Fenris looked like he had been struck, and Sophie felt a cruel satisfaction. “I could inform him of what a mistake that would be.” 

“You don’t even know me. And you don’t know him.” 

“I know what it is to regret abandoning love in the face of fear.” 

She looked at this man, this man who acted like he loved her mother when he was the one who left her, her father, and she vowed to herself she would not be like him. “I have to go get ready.” 

She ran up the beach toward her mother. 

~

Hawke was ready to fend off whatever estranged friend burst through the doorway, but instead it was her daughter. She eyed her warily after the morning’s conversation.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready? Where are Tali and Liara?”

“Will you help me?” 

Their argument earlier seemed to have been forgotten. Hawke nodded, and Sophie took off at a sprint up the stairs, leaving Hawke to chase her. “We have time,” she called after her. 

But that wasn’t true; their time together was up. Hawke hadn’t helped Sophie dress in years. The last time must have been before Sophie knew how to do her laces, and Hawke didn’t even remember it, because she hadn’t known it was going to be the last time. It was all like that, the last time feeding her by spoon before Sophie learned to hold it, the last time bathing her before she could be trusted in the bath, the last time reading to her before she was old enough to choose her own books. This time, her fingers lingering over the buttons, Hawke knew it was the last time, and oh, how cruel that was. She moved as slowly as she could, as if she could stop time and stop Sophie from having already grown up. Twenty years with her daughter was not long enough. But she couldn’t hold her here anymore, couldn’t stunt her growth and deny her the chance to see what else was in the world. Sophie was entirely and beautifully her own person, and Hawke couldn’t understand exactly when and how that all had happened. 

Sophie was quiet as she dressed, and Hawke wished for the thousandth time she could see into her daughter’s mind. Was she excited, scared, still resentful like this morning? Was marriage so young really the right choice for her? 

She began to pin Sophie’s hair back with flowers she had picked that morning, and Sophie finally smiled at her. It never ceased to amaze her how thrilled she could be that her daughter enjoyed her company. It had never occurred to her to think that her own mother might have been desperate for Hawke’s approval or attention. Once she realized all the uncertainty that came with the overwhelming, painful love she bore for her daughter, it was too late to ask. 

“Am I letting you down?” Sophie blurted out.

Hawke stroked her daughter’s hair, surprised by the question. “How could you even think that?”

“Because of everything you did! The Deep Roads, the Arishok, being the Champion and then raising me all on your own.” 

“Honey, I didn’t really have much of a choice in any of that. I couldn’t go home after the Blight and then… I don’t know. It just sort of happened. But this life we have together, Sophie, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And whatever you do, you’re going to be amazing at it.” 

She hugged her daughter then, once again willing time to slow, to let her savor these precious last moments, but time was stubborn, and Sophie let go. She was radiant in her wedding clothes, and it was time for her to go. She went to check on Liara and Tali, and Hawke was left to dab her eyes and get dressed herself. 

Outside, she watched the three girls laugh and tease and whisper together before they mounted up on horses to walk to the Chantry, and she wondered how she had ever considered weddings happy affairs. Oh, sure, she was gaining a son and all that, but did he have to tear her heart in two in like this? She trailed slowly after her daughter, chest aching every step of the way. Was she really to tend to the inn on this island alone? 

She dabbed at her eyes again, not wanting to be puffy and red before the ceremony even started. When she opened them, Fenris was beside her, matching her pace. “Are you sure about all this?” he asked softly, “Sophie leaving the island? Being subject to the whims of this world and everything it can hurl at a mage? Are you ready for that?”

Donna rolled her eyes. "I’m not going to rob her of a chance for some whirlwind romance and adventure. I’ve kept her away from the heat and the action for her entire life. It’s time I let her blaze her own trail.” 

"Hm." It occurred to Hawke that if he didn't leave, it would appear as if they were arriving together at the Chantry. She began to slow her pace. Fenris, however, wasn't done inserting himself into her business. "In that case, we need to talk about her father." 

"Maker’s breath, her father? Don't worry about that. He's not here." 

Fenris pushed himself in front of her, forcing her to look at him. "I think he is. And that means something for her future." 

For the first time in twenty years, Hawke really looked at him. Fenris still had those eyes that she had lost herself in, green and earnest and begging her to acknowledge him. To answer him. Her gaze dropped to his well-tailored clothes spanning his still-obviously powerful torso, then landed on his wrist. Against all odds, a faded ribbon that might have once been red was tied there. She swallowed hard against the sudden lump in her throat. 

"I don't want to talk about history. The things we went through… they don’t matter anymore." 

When he tied it there, she had begun planning a future for them. She had imagined it all, built an entire fairytale in her head. And then she lived it alone. The future was now their past, and there was no fixing it. 

“Is she mine?”

Hawke laughed bitterly, wrenching her eyes from his hand. “Yours? Fuck you, Fenris, she’s _ mine _ . And she’s _ hers _. She belongs to herself.”

"You know what I'm asking. I know there were others--" 

“Maker’s breath, Fen. I don’t want to talk about this." She turned from him, hugging herself. This was a dream and a nightmare rolled into one. He was here, and he wore her ribbon. He was here, and he wanted to know about Sophie. He was here, and he was too fucking late. She rounded on him. "I spent just a moment in your arms, thinking I belonged there. Thinking that everything we had been through, thinking all the trust and love I had poured into you meant something. I thought I had built a home with you. But I was a fool.”

“The blow I dealt you--”

She didn’t want to hear whatever excuse he had. Whatever reason caused him to leave all those years ago just didn’t matter anymore. She cut him off. “I understand, Fenris. You came to say ‘hi’. Shake my hand. It’s done, and I’m sorry if it’s not the way you wanted. If I’m not who you remembered me to be.” 

“Hawke, I--”

She ran. It served him right, after the way he ran away from her. She ran all the way to the chantry, where her daughter was waiting for her.


	6. Take a Chance

Donna Hawke was keeping it together. Her daughter, radiant, was holding hands with her new son, slightly less radiant and rather more armed than she expected him to be. But that was fine, and Donna was barely crying about any of it. In all of history, there had never been a more composed mother of the bride. Therefore, she was as shocked as anyone, when, after the chantry sister said, “And a special welcome to Donna, who is representing Sophie’s family here today,” Donna stood up from her seat in the first row of pews and said, “Wait. Her father is also here.”

It was the kind of thoughtless impulse that brought Sophie into existence in the first place. Gasps went up from the audience, and three men stood up and quickly registered each other with varied levels of horror, but Hawke was only interested in Sophie’s reaction. Her daughter’s eyes widened in shock, but not exactly the surprise Donna had expected. “I know,” Sophie breathed, “I invited him.”

“How?” Hawke’s already stuttering mind was at risk of completely failing her now. “I don’t even know which one… Maker’s breath, that’s why all three of them are here.” She held a hand to cover her face. Of course such chaos could only have been caused by a Hawke. “So you know how I… oh mercy of the Bride of the Maker.”

“Please forgive me,” Sophie begged, “I didn’t mean for this to be so… please forgive me.”

“Can you forgive me?”

“I don’t care if you slept with all of Kirkwall,” Sophie cried exuberantly, “You’re my mom, and I’m so proud to be your daughter.” 

They embraced, the truth finally out, Hawke’s shame for the world to see, and her daughter not caring and loving her just the same. She wiped a tear from her eye as they parted.

“I didn’t sleep with _all _of Kirkwall,” Hawke muttered to the sister, who nodded somberly. Kaidan’s family looked scandalized, not that Hawke would mind terribly if they decided they didn’t want Sophie after all.

“Am I getting this right?” Sebastian demanded, “Sophie could be mine, but she could also belong to Fenris or Anders?”

Before Hawke could answer, the door to the chantry slammed open and a spear whistled through the air. Hawke blasted it out of the sky before it could land, and when she turned to check on Sophie, all three of her fathers had surrounded her. 

There was little need. Hawke had trained her herself. As Qunari poured in through every door and window, Sophie punted them through the sky with her magic. Hardly any got close enough for Fenris to strike, while Anders and Sebastian picked them off from a distance. The sight would almost be touching, if her daughter’s wedding was not now the scene of a battle and ten year’s peace with the Qunari undone. 

“You truly don’t know which one of us is the father?” Fenris asked as he lunged to take out an enemy to her left. 

“Yes,” Hawke said, thrusting with her staff and impaling an attacker. “And you have no right to judge me. You _left.” _

Fenris practically snarled as he felled another. "I came back!" he roared loud enough for the words to echo through the tumult.

Hawke lowered her staff. "What?" 

The turmoil of the battle faded to little more than background noise as Hawke listened to him, her staff hanging uselessly at her side. "I came back to tell you how I felt.” Their friends folded around them, still fighting, so now they were in the center, shielded from the violence. “I came to apologize and tell you I couldn't bear to spend another day without you. That no future was worth living unless it was by your side.” 

Hawke stared at him, decades old feelings twisting her stomach as she once again felt powerless in the face of those green eyes focused on her. “Why didn’t you?”

Fenris shook his head. "I showed up to your house, and you were with Sebastian." 

“Pardon?” Sebastian asked without turning his head. 

“Nothing! Keep protecting my daughter!” She threw a bolt of lightning in the general direction of their attackers, but her attention was on Fenris. “I didn’t know.” 

“I thought it better. I thought he could give you a better life than I could. And then he left you to rot the minute it didn’t suit him, and nobody would tell me where you’d gone.” 

Donna wasn’t certain when exactly her hands had ended up in his, gripped tightly, but she couldn’t imagine ever letting go. “That’s not exactly how it happened.” 

“He declared war on you.” 

“Okay, yes, that did happen.”

He cupped her cheek, thumb wiping away a stray tear. "After the explosion, I tried to find you. I wanted to. But Varric wouldn’t tell me where you went." 

Her voice came out very small. "The Chantry was after me, and I knew I was pregnant by then. I couldn't… I couldn't risk the brand." 

Hawke couldn’t be certain how long they stood there gazing at each other. The chantry grew quiet again, and Hawke tore her eyes from Fenris’s face to find the fighting had all but died around them. No longer under attack, the wedding guests mostly looked perplexed. Sophie was staring at her mother’s hand held tightly in Fenris’s with an expression of absolute delight.

“Are they still angry about that whole Arishok thing?” Isabela asked. “It’s been years. Get over it.”

“The Qunari don’t generally hold grudges,” came a voice from the entrance to the Chantry. A red-headed woman holding a bow stood silhouetted in the door. 

“Though they might make an exception for a Hawke,” said the man in full-plate armor next to her. 

Sophie pushed past her fathers. “Uncle Ali! Aunt Leli! I didn’t know you were coming! Did you come together?” She ran down the aisle, skirting around corpses in her remarkably untouched wedding dress. 

Hawke watched as two more world leaders cooed over her daughter. This small amount of Qunari hardly counted as an invasion. More of a friendly warning, by their standards.

“This is all very nice,” a voice hissed from next to Hawke’s shoulder, “But we must ready ourselves for the next attack.” When—and how—did Zevran arrive? “Cultists from Nevarra this time. I already eliminated the Crows on my way here.”

“Thank you, I think,” Hawke replied.

Just as he said, another wave of attackers burst through the chantry. Hawke and Fenris fought their way to Sophie, but she was well protected standing behind Alistair. This group was more easily dispatched than the Qunari, and just as mysterious.

“Which one of us angered Nevarra?” Varric called out to what was rapidly becoming a world summit. There were shrugs all around, and a new figure darkened the now doorless entryway of the chantry.

“Oh, what now,” Isabela asked.

"I come on behalf of the Queen of Antiva,” she announced, delicately stepping over bodies with her skirts held up between pinched fingers, “She regrets that she was overlooked when the invitations were sent out for this… event." Josephine's eyes scanned the room, lingering on Alistair. "She is committed to peace with all of the nations and organizations represented here today, but regretfully, as she was not included, I have the task of asking you to please remove yourselves from her sovereign lands. She takes particular note of half the Fereldan Navy in her waters." She added very quietly, “I do wish you had told me about this, Leliana.”

“I only found out about it recently myself. My invitation seems to have also been lost. I thought I should see why so many leaders and notable criminals were meeting on one small, insignificant island.” 

"Did I just get kicked out of my own wedding?" Sophie asked.

Hawke had no answer for her. With the arrival of Alistair and the Divine, that put the royalty count at four. Five, if Dama di Palazzo to the Queen of Antiva counted. Hawke had never met Josephine Montilyet, but her ruffles preceded her.

“As for our assailants, I’m afraid you are all to blame for them coming,” Leliana said, stony gaze aimed at Hawke, “Donna, you should have known better than to secretly invite every well-connected friend here. Every leader who wasn’t invited now thinks this is a secret meeting meant to overthrow their power. And every group of overconfident radicals thinks they have their opportunity to topple the order of the world.”

Behind her, Donna heard Kaidan say, “Sophie, is that the actual Divine? Here, at our wedding?”

Shrugging, Hawke replied, “It’s just a wedding. We weren’t exactly colluding to do anything beyond drink some rum and dance a little.”

Josephine sighed. “And now that the Queen of Antiva has learned the wayward Champion of Kirkwall is residing within her borders, she respectfully asks that you leave.”

“Leave the inn?” Hawke asked, “My home?”

“Oh come now, Josie,” Alistair said, “Is that really fair? All because she didn’t get a wedding invite?”

"How is that any different from the letter you sent Kaidan?” Sophie accused, “You didn't want me in Ferelden!" 

"Well, to be fair to me, I've actually met your mother. And I did give you a mabari. And I kept track of her over the years, unlike Queen whoever…"

“Rodriga Fernanda Isabela—” Alistair nodded along, gesturing in the air for Josephine to hurry up and finish— “Teresa Carolina Of Antiva has been gravely insulted by this oversight. And Alistair, if you were going to move your Navy, you should have sent word.”

“Does she realize that in canceling this wedding I’ll be throwing another one?” Hawke threatened, “A larger one. That I will specifically not invite her to, rather than accidentally. With guards this time. And Grey Wardens. And I’ll host it somewhere horrible. Like Orlais.”

“The Sunburst Throne would urge you to reconsider that, Hawke.”

“Are we not getting married today?” Sophie asked, looking around the room.

“Starkhaven would be proud to host your wedding, Sophie,” Sebastian said, “Though the question of your parentage…”

Angry world leaders, waves of surprise attacks and wrecked buildings were familiar enough for Hawke. She groaned quietly as all attention was once again on her ill thought out love affairs.

“Oh, I can help with that!” Merrill offered, “There is a bit of old magic that could tell us who the father is, but it is blood magic, so I’d have to ask that nobody tells the Chantry.”

Standing in a chantry with the Divine present, nobody quite knew how to respond to that.

“Sorry, can I butt in?” Anders stood up from his pew. Hawke closed her eyes—as if the rest of this wasn’t bad enough, now everyone remembered that _Anders _was here. More than just Sebastian had a warrant out for his head. Fenris gave her hand a squeeze. “I just want to say that… I’m fine not knowing. Even having a third of Sophie, sort of maybe possibly being her dad… it’s the most wonderful thing I could have imagined. I never thought I’d ever get even that much of a child. I would love to believe I had any part in who she is.”

If Hawke hoped that at the end of this, the rest of the world would be friendly to Sophie Hawke, young optimistic mage ready to find her fortune with a positive attitude and an easy smile, Anders just blasted it to smithereens.

Sebastian pushed his way forward. “I also would be honored to be a third of Sophie’s father.” 

And now she could add assassins to her list of worries for Sophie.

Hawke looked at Fenris. “As would I.” 

And there was the lid sliding over Hawke’s urn. Three of the most famously dangerous and dangerously famous men in the world just claimed her daughter equally and without reservation.

“Typical, isn’t it?” Varric muttered to Merrill, “You wait twenty years for a dad and then three come along at once.” 

Hawke began to laugh. Uncontrollably. Wildly. Everything she had worked for undone in one completely mad afternoon. Twenty years of quiet motherhood, fifteen of them in comfortable irrelevance on her island, tending to her small business and solving small problems for regular people, and now here she stood in a ruined chantry with two thirds of the heads of state in the world privy to her most carefully held secrets and telling her to flee again.

And here Fenris was, holding her hand like he had never let it go. He came back. All those years ago, he came back. As she calmed her laughing, he reached a hand to her face again. If she trusted in him, one more time, would he let her down? 

“Marry me,” she said, her giddiness bubbling into audacity. He didn’t answer. She gestured around them. “Marry me. Here. In the middle of all this.” 

"I have loved you for almost thirty years now. No one but you, Hawke. From the moment I stepped on this island, it’s all I’ve wanted to tell you." 

She finally pried her hand from his and removed the scarf from around her neck. “Then marry me right now,” she said, tying it around his other wrist. 

He nodded. “Yes.” 

“Is the sister still alive?” she called to no one in particular, “Did she flee? Let’s get this done. Kaidan? Sophie? Do you mind if we share your wedding?”

“No ma’am,” Kaidan replied.

“The sister was a spy from the Anderfels,” Leliana said, “But I’ll do it. Assuming Josephine calls off the Antivan fleet, that is.”

Josephine nodded graciously.

“Well we better do it quickly before the roof comes down on us,” Hawke said, “Or Tevinter arrives or the cultists of whatever. Or we find out that under this chantry is a smuggling ring full of blood mages.”

Everyone got to work dragging corpses out of the way. To the side, Donna heard Alistair apologizing to Kaidan and promising he could have his commission back if he wanted it, and a promotion to boot. Sebastian was speaking warmly to Josephine, and his best attempts at charm appeared to be _working, _Maker help them all. Maybe she’d let them even have their celebratory dinner at the end of this.

Everyone gathered around at what used to be an altar. Most of the pews had been damaged beyond repair, so people stood, shoulder to shoulder, stained glass crunching under their shoes while both couples were married.

Hawke stared into Fenris’s eyes, eyes that had haunted her for years of sleepless nights and when Leliana asked the question, she answered without hesitation. “I do.”

Twenty years, and the both of them had walked such lonely paths. She knew the strange twists and turns of hers, and could only guess at his, could only wait to draw it out of him day after day, night after night. Twenty years of holding a grudge in her heart, and in just one afternoon she shed it, the pain slipping away like it was nothing. Behind it, as she had always suspected, was a deep, unchanging love.

Neither of them was to blame for what happened. Or maybe they both were. But now, with everything said and done, the only thing to do was kiss him, for the first time for the rest of their lives.

They were attacked by a cabal of Tevinter blood mage cultist smugglers on the way back to the party at the inn, but the smugglers were tired from fighting off all the other would-be assassins, and the wedding party was already warmed up, so it only delayed them on the path about five minutes. Merrill did a fabulous job getting blood stains out of everyone’s finery.

~~

Varric set down his fork, thoroughly full of Antivan cuisine. By his count, everyone was about half a drink from starting the singing. Hawke had thoughtfully moved the piano to her terrace, and his fingers itched. With all the surprise guests and the destruction of the night before, there hadn’t been enough chairs for everyone and they squeezed together. Alcohol generally made up for any oversights in party-planning, but Varric noted that if Sebastian kept working his charms, Josie and all her ruffles might find his lap a suitable throne for the evening. After the chaos and violence and threats of the afternoon, everyone seemed to be in a good mood.

Not least of whom was Donna, curled up against Fenris, his arm around her shoulders, both of them smiling. Together. Married.

It was enough to make Varric more than a little nervous. He leaned over toward Merrill. “Do you think that if I had just told him where she was twenty years ago, they would have…” he trailed off. “Nah, best not to even think about it.”

“Agreed.”

“Still, never thought I’d see this day, Daisy. Hawke, married? To Fenris?”

She turned her big eyes to stare right through him. “Do you really think we are all beyond love at this age?”

He scoffed. Deflected. “I know I am. Time to continue on as a lone wolf. It’ll be fun to write down this epilogue to ‘The Champion,’ though.” 

Merrill narrowed her eyes. “You know Varric, you might pursue an epilogue of your own. After all, I’m still free.” Varric just snorted into his wine. Merrill continued, “Now that the pretty Hawkes have flown, you could take a chance.” 

“You aren’t serious, are you?”

“Oh, I warned you. There’s so much I’ve imagined doing with you. _Alone_.” 

_Blood magic, probably_. “Stop messing with me, Daisy. It isn’t nice.”

She tapped out a beat with her finger on the table. “Are you so afraid of a love affair?”

The combination of the beat and the words rang an old, old bell in Varric’s head. “Oh, no,” he groaned, “Shit, I remember this one.”

Merrill stood up, and the singing had begun.

_If you change your mind, I’m the first in line_.

He looked to Hawke for help, but she was whispering in Fenris’s ear.

_Honey, I’m still free. Take a chance on me. _

Hawke’s guitar appeared as if from nowhere, and Fenris began to accompany her. One more stanza and Merrill would be on the table. Her clear and melodic voice had now reached the rest of the party, and everyone was quieting to listen to this impromptu performance.

_If you need me, let me know, gonna be around_

_If you’ve got no place to go if you’re feeling down._

He had been wrong. Only one more line, and Merrill _and _Hawke were both on the table. Harmonizing.

Anders took Varric’s spot at the piano, the traitor, and somehow, from somewhere, when Hawke yelled, “Hit it!” a tambourine was tossed into the air and Merrill caught it.

_Cuz you know I’ve got so much that I want to do when I dream I’m alone with you, it’s magic_

“You know Anders wrote that line about Cullen,” Varric muttered. More of a threat than seduction in his mind.

_You say that I waste my time, but I can’t get you off my mind_

_And I think you know that I love you so_

And now Merrill was _pointing _at him and Hawke had coaxed Fenris onto the table next to her. All around him people were making eyes at each other, and Merrill was still singing, still looking at Varric.

Well, shit. She _was _serious. And the next time she pointed at him, she flipped her hand over to extend it to him, and why not? Why shouldn’t he change his mind on this whole love thing? Varric took the proffered hand and joined them all on the creaking table that was going to collapse any minute now. To clamorous applause, he kissed Merrill right on the lips. 

“What happens next?” he asked her late into the evening when the wine was running low. Sophie and Kaidan swayed together on the dance floor, in their own little world. Donna and Fenris had disappeared half an hour ago. Josephine and Sebastian, too. Anders sat on a ledge facing the ocean, bottle of wine to his side, old guitar in his hands. Somewhere, Alistair laughed in chorus with Isabela.

Everything had pretty much worked out, more or less. For this evening at least. That’s the best they ever managed in Kirkwall, one good evening at a time, before everything changed again.

“I don’t know,” Merrill said, leaning her head against his shoulder. He held her a little tighter, slowly allowing himself to enjoy how it felt to have her like this. “I suppose we’ll find out together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Walks in a year later with a home-made latte in hand because I can't go outside. How's everyone doing? 
> 
> This zany, bonkers fic brought a lot of joy to my life. Should have finished it sooner, but honestly getting to reread the whole thing with fresh eyes while putting together this last chapter was a gift, so sorry not sorry. I hope you had half as fun reading as I did writing!


End file.
